Word: blocher
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When he was elected to the Swiss Cabinet in December 2003, Christoph Blocher celebrated his triumph with a glass of white wine. Not only did the billionaire industrialist get a seat on the seven-member Federal Council - Switzerland's executive government - but his right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP), won a landslide victory in the polls with 29% of the vote this year...
...Last week, after the joint session of the House of Representatives and the Senate convened to re-elect all seven members of the Cabinet for the next four-year term, Blocher had no reason to pop any corks. In a surprising twist of events the two bodies, which constitute the parliament, voted to oust Blocher, 67, who became Justice Minister during his Cabinet tenure and generated widespread criticism for his lack of collegiality, confrontational style and divisive politics. In his place the legislators elected his more moderate SVP colleague, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, who was not even in the running...
...Many people got fed up with Blocher's aggressive and combative manner," says Georg Lutz, a political scientist at Bern University. "When you are part of a coalition government you should try to find common ground with the others. But he just pursued his own agenda and polarized the whole country...
...accounts, Blocher, the most outspoken and controversial figure of the SVP, a populist rural party that has morphed into a national force, was not a team player. Throughout his regime he often acted in an "authoritarian way," says Thomas Fleiner, professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law at the Federalism Institute in Fribourg, even going as far as trying to "exclude members of his own party from various committees because they had not followed the party's official line...
...February - and is the only person worldwide to be convicted in relation to 9/11 - filed a motion for his immediate release. Mzoudi's trial continues this week. Right Minister SWITZERLAND The balance of power in the government shifted to the right with the election by parliament of Christoph Blocher, leader of the nationalist Swiss People's Party (SVP), to the Cabinet. Under the 44-year-old so-called magic formula, the four main political parties share seven Cabinet seats. The SVP, campaigning on an anti-immigration, anti-E.U. platform, emerged as the biggest parliamentary party in October elections. Blocher...