Samuel Schmid
Disclaimer: Swiss politics, so many links lead to German pages.
Samuel Schmid, member of the Swiss Federal Council (Bundesrat), is stepping back as per December 31th, as he just announced 10am this morning. It was, as sad to say as it is, inevitable.
The SVP, which was Schmids party until the end of last year, was partially torn apart by internal struggles when Christoph Blocher wasn’t re-elected for the Swiss Federal Council (the Swiss main executive body, consisting of 7 members) and Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf was elected instead. That election was a true tour de force with opposition to Blocher that originally sparked in the center and the left of the political spectrum, mainly the SP and the Green, but gained supporters deep into the SVP. Later on, Schmid and Widmer-Schlumpf were kicked from the SVP, quite a few moderate members quit the party only weeks later, and found themselves in a newly formed (and less extreme) party, the BDP. A true polit thriller, we live in interesting times.
Blocher was the man who shaped the SVP for decades before that point, a populist and controverter, isolationist where it fits national-oriented voters and global where it fits his own industrial empire or the interest groups that he profits from, pretending to speak for the small and powerless while being a millionaire himself. When he was part of the Federal Council, he intended to do politics like he does economics, and he thinks economic leadership should be executed just like military leadership – so in effect, he tried to militarize politics. Which just won’t work, not in a democracy. Add his all the way anti-european stance and things that could be interpreted as racism, and you have one heck of a right wing politician.
I don’t like Blocher’s political style nor position, if that hasn’t become obvious yet, and apparently, so did the majority of our Federal Convention. The SVP threatened to enter the opposition, which on one hand isn’t entirely possible in Switzerland due to our many involved parties, and on the other hand is nothing new since the SVP always was in the opposition wherever possible. Anyway.
Much mud-slinging later, Samuel Schmid (who was called “half a Bundesrat” early on in his career in the federal council already by not-so-democratic elements in the SVP) has given in to the pressure, and is leaving. Both due to political and health reasons, it seems in the end the constant stress and pressure affected his healthiness, too.
It’s sad, because while he may not have represented the radical right-wing elements that so cling to and like their power, he certainly did represent the less extreme right, just like Moritz Leuenberger doesn’t follow through with positions from the extreme left but rather proposes solutions that are capable of winning a majority. We lose a down-to-earth, calm and reasonable council member, one from near the other end of the political spectrum from where I find myself that I could thoroughly respect, and that always had reasons for his actions and positions that I could follow and understand. It is a sad day for democracy when a man like that is successfully mobbed out of the position he was elected into.
Update 2008-11-12 11:22: admin.ch already has a statement regarding the resignation of BR Schmid. Via tou.ch.
