Wednesday, 8 December 2010

Nobody is interested in a president

Switzerland voted for a new president. Well, not exactly Switzerland or the 7.78 million Swiss, but a combined session of both houses of parliament, called Vereinigte Bundesversammlung.

246 members had the right to cast a vote. Only 223 ballot papers were handed out, indicating that 23 parliamentarians did not bother to show up. From the 222 ballot papers cast 106 bore the name of the Socialist candidate Micheline Calmy-Rey (65). She will be the Swiss president for one year, starting on 1st January 2011.

27 ballot papers were blank, 6 void. The rest carried names of other candidates.

Anybody interested to adopt the Swiss republican model, where 106 votes from 246 electors are sufficient to make someone president?

Even the arch-conservative Neue Zürcher Zeitung was not happy with this presidential election: Calmy-Rey bricht den Negativrekord (Calmy-Rey breaks negative record).
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2 comments:

Evan said...

And how much power does the Swiss President actually have? From what I remember, not very much. Knowing absolutely nothing about current Swiss politics, I think the low turnout is more of a reflection of that than anything else.

Yes, it's disappointing. But, the point of the republican model of government is that, if the other 140 electors cared, they could keep her from office. I'd still rather adopt that model than the hereditary monarchist model, where zero votes from zero electors are sufficient to make someone king.

10:13 pm
radical royalist said...

“I'd still rather adopt that model than the hereditary monarchist model, where zero votes from zero electors are sufficient to make someone king.”

Is it possible that you are stuck in the 18th century model of Monarchy? A Monarch of the 21st century has not the power of Le Roi Soleil – nor does he or she has the power of a US president whose position was modelled according to a Monarch the US rebels tried to get rid of.

All European Monarchs had to present themselves to their peoples and seek approval.

5:42 am

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