No lesson learned for SVP Federal Councillor Parmelin is clearly elected as President of the Swiss Confederation - Cassis with a low result as runner-up
The President of the Swiss Confederation in 2026 will be Guy Parmelin. The SVP President was elected to the office by the United Federal Assembly on Wednesday.
SVP Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin has reached a high point in his career. As expected, the United Federal Assembly elected him as President of the Confederation for the coming year on Wednesday.
With 203 out of 210 valid votes, the 66-year-old achieved a brilliant result. 5 votes were invalid, 13 were blank. 7 members of parliament voted for someone other than Parmelin.
Parmelin will take over from Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter and will be President of the Swiss Confederation for the second time. Although the election is considered a formality, it is occasionally used as an opportunity to teach members of the Federal Council a lesson by refusing to vote.
Before his first presidential year in 2021, the 66-year-old SVP politician had received 188 votes. When he was elected Vice President a year ago, 196 members of the United Federal Assembly voted for him.
In this millennium, presidents of the Swiss Confederation have received an average of 172 votes from Parliament. The best elected presidents in the past 25 years were Ueli Maurer with 201 votes in 2019, Pascal Couchepin with 197 votes in 2008 and Johann Schneider-Ammann with 196 votes in 2016.
The worst result in recent decades was achieved by Micheline Calmy-Rey in 2011 with 106 votes. Alain Berset's result in 2023 was also well below average. He received 140 votes at the time.
Cassis becomes Vice-President - with a rather low result
FDP Federal Councillor and Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis becomes Vice-President. Parliament elected the Ticino native with 144 out of 190 valid votes. 22 members voted for Federal Councillor Albert Rösti. A further 24 votes went to different people.
Cassis' result is rather low compared to the results for vice presidents of the national government. Over the past 25 years, their results have ranged between 122 and 207 votes. In his first election to the Federal Council Vice-Presidency for 2021, Cassis received 162 votes.
As with Guy Parmelin, who was elected as the new President of the Swiss Confederation, this is the second time that 64-year-old medical doctor Cassis has been elected to the Presidency of the Federal Council. Cassis was already President of the Confederation once before in 2022. He is likely to hold this office for the second time in 2027.
"Loving your country means wanting the best for it"
One of Switzerland's great strengths is its diversity. President-elect Guy Parmelin said this in his inaugural speech next year.
"Serving one's country, canton or municipality is a noble task, demanding but absolutely rewarding if the goal is the common good," said Parmelin at the beginning of his speech. This is all the more true in a country as close-knit as Switzerland.
"Serving it means recognizing that we have received a rich heritage, made up in particular of values whose heirs, but above all whose guardians, we are," said the Vaud native. Every decision has a general impact and concrete consequences for the everyday lives of all members of this society.
"Loving your country means wanting the best for it, not out of arrogance, but with the ambition to make it a fairer, more open, more humane and more prosperous place," said the 66-year-old. For the SVP politician, it is an incentive to make his contribution to building a better future.