Interior Minister Didier Burkhalter of the Radical party is to take over foreign affairs from Micheline Calmy-Rey who steps down at the end of the year.
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The cabinet met on Friday to allocate the ministries after Wednesday’s elections which saw Alain Berset of the Social Democratic party chosen to fill the seat left vacant by Calmy-Rey.
Berset, who had declared himself willing to take on any ministry, will now go to interior.
The allocation of the seven government portfolios is done according to seniority. All the other ministers decided to stay where they were.
Calmy-Rey had been in the foreign ministry since joining the cabinet in 2002. She is widely credited with having given foreign affairs a new prominence.
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But experts say the stability of the Swiss government system with its seven-member multiparty cabinet is not under threat. “Resignations before the end of the term are part of Swiss politics,“ says Michael Hermann, political scientist at Zurich University. He adds that every resignation of a minister has its own history. “Compared with changes in…
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