Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Didier Burkhalter, 49, a Radical party (centre-right) politician from Neuchatel, was elected by the Swiss parliament to the country’s seven-member Federal Council (cabinet) with 129 votes against 106 for the other candidate, Urs Schwaller, PDC (also centre), on the fourth round of voting. He succeeds Pascal Couchepin, from canton Valais, who is retiring 1 November. Burkhalter’s election means his party will retain its seat on the council and the balance remains unchanged in the power-sharing Swiss government. The language balance remains intact as well, with one French-speaking canton representative replaced by another.
Details: Swissinfo and on radio, WRS. Swiss French media: Le Temps, Tribune de Geneve/24 Heures, TSR
Background story, GenevaLunch
This work by genevalunch.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported.
News story, GenevaLunch, 16 September 2009.
Filed under: Politics
Tags: Didier Burkhalter, FDP, Federal Council, Neuchatel, Pascal Couchepin, radical party, Swiss cabinet, Swiss parliament, Swiss politics, Urs Schwaller
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