BERN. The race to succeed Guy Parmelin gained its first firm contours on Saturday, and lost its first prominent name a day earlier. Thomas Aeschi, leader of the People’s Party group in the federal parliament, said he will press for a ticket of at least two candidates for the 9 December election. Esther Friedli, the St Gallen senator often counted among the favourites, will not be one of them.
“I will work to ensure that at least two people are on the ticket,” Aeschi said on the Saturday Review of Swiss radio. He did not rule out more. When Parmelin himself was elected in 2015, the United Federal Assembly chose between three SVP candidates: the Vaudois, Ticino’s Norman Gobbi and Aeschi himself.
Friedli announced on Friday that she will not seek the seat, preferring to concentrate on her Council of States mandate and on next year’s re-election campaign. Her withdrawal thins the German speaking field eight days after Parmelin said he would leave the government at the end of the year, “at 11.59pm at the very latest”.
Rickli Surfaces After the Holidays, Amaudruz Still Thinking
Natalie Rickli, Zurich’s 49 year old health director and the most mentioned name of all, broke her silence on Tuesday with an Instagram photograph of herself in a wetsuit, underwater, in a yoga pose. She loves her job, she wrote, and is standing for a third term in the cantonal government. A candidacy for Bern “must be well considered”. Her answer comes after the autumn holidays; the registration deadline for cantonal party sections falls on 23 October at noon.
In the Romandie, the name is Céline Amaudruz. The 47 year old Geneva national councillor and party vice president has sat in the House since 2011, is well connected on both sides of the language border and is taking time to decide. Other parties regard her as a hardliner, a label that could cost her the votes of the centre in a secret ballot.
Behind the two favourites, the list lengthens by the week. Vaud’s Yvan Pahud says the function interests him, though he has sat in the National Council only since 2023. Fribourg’s Nicolas Kolly, a member of the group executive who speaks on agriculture and Europe, confirms he is “seriously reflecting”. Monika Rüegger and Marcel Dettling are mentioned in Bern, and Aeschi himself says he will announce his own decision “in due course”. The Vaud section, meanwhile, insists the seat must stay francophone.
The Calendar and the Arithmetic
The procedure is now fixed. Cantonal sections report possible candidacies by 23 October. The search commission hears the candidates and sends its proposal to the group presidency by 13 November. The parliamentary group settles the official ticket on 20 November, and the United Federal Assembly elects on 9 December. Parmelin works on until 31 December.
Aeschi was plain about the profile: leadership ability, assertiveness and charisma, with the language regions appropriately represented. “It is clear that the Federal Council needs both women and men,” he said. The group is eyeing the justice or the defence department, the two portfolios where it sees the next vacancy. “We are not laying claim to any of them,” he added.
The arithmetic of the secret ballot favours the moderate. The SVP can nominate, but the 246 members of both chambers elect, and a candidate who cannot reach beyond the party’s own ranks will struggle. That is why the talk keeps returning to the same shortlist, and why the first SVP woman in government remains a genuine possibility.