Origins of the institution The Federal Council was instituted by the 1848
Federal Constitution as the "supreme executive and directorial authority of the Confederation". When the Constitution was written,
constitutional democracy was still in its infancy, and the founding fathers of Switzerland had little in the way of examples. While they drew heavily on the
United States Constitution for the organisation of the federal state as a whole, they opted for the
collegial rather than the presidential system for the executive branch of government (
directorial system). This accommodated the long tradition of the rule of collective bodies in Switzerland. Under the
Ancien Régime, the
cantons of the
Old Swiss Confederacy had been governed by councils of pre-eminent citizens since time immemorial, and the later
Helvetic Republic (with its equivalent Directorate) as well as the cantons that had given themselves liberal constitutions since the 1830s had also had good experiences with that mode of governance. Today, only three other states,
Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Andorra and
San Marino, have collective rather than unitary heads of state. However the collegial system of government has found widespread adoption in modern
democracies in the form of
cabinet government with collective responsibility.
Changes in composition The 1848 constitutional provision providing for the Federal Counciland indeed the institution of the Council itselfhas remained unchanged to this day, even though Swiss society has changed profoundly since.
Party representation Free Democratic hegemony, 1848–1891 The 1848 Constitution was one of the few successes of the Europe-wide democratic
revolutions of 1848. In Switzerland, the democratic movement was ledand the new federal state decisively shapedby the
Radicals (presently
FDP. The Liberals). After winning the
Sonderbund War (the Swiss civil war) against the Catholic cantons, the Radicals at first used their majority in the
Federal Assembly to fill all the seats on the Federal Council. This made their former war opponents, the
Catholic-Conservatives (presently the
Christian Democratic People's Party, CVP), the
opposition party. Only after
Emil Welti's resignation in 1891 after a failed referendum on
railway nationalisation did the Radicals decide to
co-opt the Conservatives by supporting the election of
Josef Zemp.
Emerging coalition government, 1891–1959 The process of involving all major political movements of Switzerland into the responsibility of government continued during the first half of the 20th century. It was hastened by the FDP's and CVP's gradually diminishing voter shares, complemented by the rise of new parties of lesser power at the ends of the
political spectrum. These were the
Social Democratic Party (SP) on the
Left and the Party of Farmers, Traders and Independents (BGB; presently the
People's Party, SVP) on the
Right. In due course, the CVP received its second seat in 1919 with
Jean-Marie Musy, while the BGB joined the council in 1929 with
Rudolf Minger. In 1943, during World War II, the Social Democrats were also temporarily included with
Ernst Nobs.
Grand coalition, 1959–2003 The 1959 elections, following the resignation of four councillors, finally established the
Zauberformel, the "magical formula" that determined the council's composition during the rest of the 20th century and established the long-standing nature of the council as a permanent, voluntary
grand coalition. In approximate relation to the parties' respective strength in the Federal Assembly, the seats were distributed as follows: •
Free Democratic Party (FDP/PRD): 2 members, •
Christian Democratic People's Party (CVP/PDC): 2 members, •
Social Democratic Party (SP/PS): 2 members, •
Swiss People's Party (SVP/UDC): 1 member. During that time, the FDP/PRD and CVP/PDC very slowly but steadily kept losing voter share to the SVP/UDC and SP/PS, respectively, which overtook the older parties in popularity during the 1990s.
End of the grand coalition, 2008 : The governmental balance was changed after the 2003 elections, when the SVP/UDC was granted a council seat for their leader
Christoph Blocher that had formerly belonged to the CVP/PDC's
Ruth Metzler. Due to controversies surrounding his conduct in office, a narrow Assembly majority did not reelect Blocher in 2007 and chose instead
Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, a more moderate SVP/UDC politician, against party policy. This led to a split of the SVP/UDC in 2008. After liberal regional SVP/UDC groups including Federal Councillors Widmer-Schlumpf and
Samuel Schmid founded a new
Conservative Democratic Party, the SVP/UDC was left in opposition for the first time since 1929, but returned into the council with the election of
Ueli Maurer on 10 December 2008, who regained the seat previously held by Schmid, who had resigned. The SVP/UDC regained its second seat on the Council in
2015, when Widmer-Schlumpf decided to resign after the SVP/UDC's large election gains in the
2015 election, being replaced by
Guy Parmelin.
Women on the council Women gained
suffrage on the federal level in 1971. They remained unrepresented in the Federal Council for three further legislatures, until the 1984 election of
Elisabeth Kopp. In 1983, the failed election of the first official female candidate,
Lilian Uchtenhagen and again in 1993 the failed election of
Christiane Brunner (both SP/PS), was controversial and the Social Democrats each time considered withdrawing from the Council altogether. • The first woman councillor was
Elisabeth Kopp (FDP/PRD), elected 1984, resigned in 1989. •
Ruth Dreifuss (SP/PS), served from 1993 to 2002, was the first woman to become President of the Confederation in 1999. Since her election there has always been at least one woman on the council. •
Ruth Metzler (Metzler-Arnold at the time) (CVP/PDC), served from 1999 to 2003 and was not re-elected to a second term (
see above). Upon her election two women served on the council simultaneously for the first time. •
Micheline Calmy-Rey (SP/PS) was elected in 2003 and served until 2011. •
Doris Leuthard (CVP/PDC) was elected in 2006 and served until 2018. •
Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf was elected in December 2007 and served until December 2015. •
Simonetta Sommaruga was elected in September 2010. Together with Micheline Calmy-Rey, Doris Leuthard and Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, women were in the majority in the Federal Council for the first time, until January 2012, when
Alain Berset replaced Micheline Calmy-Rey. •
Karin Keller-Sutter and
Viola Amherd were elected on 5 December 2018. Keller-Sutter is currently on the council, while Amherd served until 2025. •
Élisabeth Baume-Schneider was elected on 7 December 2022 and is the most recent woman to be elected to the council.
Regional balancing acts Until 1999, the Constitution mandated that no canton could have multiple representatives on the Federal Council at the same time. For most of Swiss history, the canton of any given councillor was determined by their place of origin, but starting in 1987 this was changed to the canton from which they were elected (for former members of the Federal Assembly or cantonal legislative or executive bodies) or place of residence. Nothing prevented candidates from moving to politically expedient cantons; this was one of the motivators for abolishing the rule. At the
1999 Swiss referendums, the Constitution was changed to require an equitable distribution of seats among the cantons and language groups of the country, without setting concrete quotas. Since the rule against Federal Councillors being from the same canton was abolished, there have been a few examples of it happening. The first time was from 2003 to 2007, when both
Moritz Leuenberger and
Christoph Blocher from the
canton of Zurich were in office. It happened again between 2010 and 2018, starting when
Simonetta Sommaruga and
Johann Schneider-Ammann from the
canton of Bern were
elected in 2010. As of 2023, four cantons –
Nidwalden,
Schaffhausen,
Schwyz, and
Uri – have never been represented on the Federal Council. The canton of
Jura is the most recent canton to be represented; since 1 January 2023, it has been represented by
Elisabeth Baume-Schneider. Whenever a member resigns, they are generally replaced by someone who is not only from the same party, but also the same language group. In 2006, however,
Joseph Deiss, a
French-speaker, resigned and was succeeded by
Doris Leuthard, a
German-speaker. In 2016,
Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, a German-speaker, was succeeded by
Guy Parmelin, a French-speaker. Most recently, in 2023, German-speaking
Simmonetta Sommaruga was replaced by French-speaking
Elisabeth Baume-Schneider. Historically, at least two council seats have been held by French- or Italian-speakers. The language makeup of the council as of 2022 is four German-speakers, two French-speakers and one Italian-speaker. In November 2017,
Ignazio Cassis became the first Italian speaker to serve on the council since 1999. For
elections to the Federal Council, candidates are usually helped by a high degree of fluency in German, French, and Italian. With the council's 2023 iteration, the constitutional requirement that languages and regions be appropriately balanced is under increased strain.
"Latin speakers" – people who either speak French, Italian, or Romansh – now form a majority on the council, despite more than sixty percent of the Swiss citizens speaking German as a first language. Likewise, no current Federal Councillors grew up in an urban area (with the exception of
Karin Keller-Sutter, who spent some school years in
Neuchâtel NE). == Operation ==