A poll published in the SonntagsZeitung newspaper has found that 76 per cent of people would welcome a majority of four or more women in the cabinet.

The results come as speculation mounts over who will replace Transport Minister Moritz Leuenberger, the longest-serving cabinet member, who has announced that he is to leave at the end of the year.

In the running are several female candidates from Leuenberger’s centre-left Social Democratic party. If elected, this would bring the number of women to four – out of seven members – in Switzerland’s multiparty cabinet.

Currently the economics, foreign minister and justice minister posts are held by women. It would be the first time ever that there would be a female majority in the government and would come almost 40 years after women were granted the vote.

The Isopublic Institute survey, which polled 500 people, also found that 83 per cent were not bothered by which sex a minister was and that only under ten per cent in each case thought women or men were better at governing.

However, those asked thought that, in general, most of the population would have a problem with a female cabinet majority.

Meanwhile, in an essay in the NZZ am Sonntag, former cabinet minister Elisabeth Kopp, the first to be elected in 1984, wondered why there was so much discussion about the topic. Men had dominated the government for almost 150 years.

In any case, she wrote, the important issue was whether the person was suited to their job.

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