BERN. The registration deadline for the Federal Council election falls on Friday, and the race inside the SVP is turning into an argument about money, loyalty and nerve. Céline Amaudruz, the Geneva national councillor and frontrunner for the ticket, is one of the wealthiest members of parliament: her seat and her board mandates bring in around CHF 380,000 a year, a figure that does not include her main profession.
The income, disclosed under the transparency rules parliament wrote for itself, is legal and declared. Its political weight lies elsewhere. A candidate who earns almost as much from side activities as a federal councillor does from office is difficult to pressure, and Amaudruz has made the pressure run the other way. People close to the group describe her position in terms that leave little room for interpretation: nominate me, or there will be trouble.
A weak centre, a watching patriarch
The ultimatum lands on a leadership that has rarely looked thinner. Group leader Thomas Aeschi wants at least two names on the ticket, Esther Friedli has withdrawn, and Natalie Rickli says she will decide after the autumn holidays. Above them all sits Christoph Blocher, who says nothing in public and is read like tea leaves anyway. The parliamentary group settles the ticket on 20 November; the United Federal Assembly elects Guy Parmelin’s successor on 9 December.
What the money buys
Mandate income of this scale is not unusual at the top of Swiss politics, where board seats accumulate around senior figures of every large party. What is unusual is the timing. The Register of Interests, introduced after years of resistance, now lets voters see the total before they see the candidate. Amaudruz’s defenders call that transparency working as intended; her critics inside the party note that a Federal Council candidate spends the autumn being measured, and CHF 380,000 is a measurement.
Friday’s deadline forces the undecided. Whoever registers by then can be considered for the ticket; whoever does not is out of the 9 December election that Parmelin’s resignation made necessary. The SVP expects its candidate to take the seat. The open question, unusually, is which name the party dares to print on the ballot.