Swiss politician resigns owing to extreme-right links
Maria Wegelin giving a speech in 2021
Keystone / Urs Flueeler
Maria Wegelin has resigned as president of the Winterthur branch of the right-wing Swiss People’s Party.
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Keystone-SDA
Wegelin resigned from office after it became known that she had worked with two activists of the extreme right-wing “Junge Tat” in her failed House of Representatives election campaign.
On Tuesday she resigned as president at an extraordinary general meeting of the party. She is also giving up her office as a city parliamentarian, according to a statement.
The new interim president Marco Graf will lead the Swiss People’s Party Winterthur until the party’s annual general assembly in 2024, according to the statement.
At the end of September the SonntagsBlick made public that Wegelin had engaged two Junge Tat activists, who had criminal convictions, for her ultimately unsuccessful election campaign in social media. The Winterthur Homeowners’ Association then withdrew its support and called on Wegelin to distance herself from the Junge Tat.
She did not do so, saying she did not want to let anyone dictate with whom she worked. In interviews, Wegelin said she had never heard of the Junge Tat group at the time the contract was awarded. She said the two young men had been kind to her and there had been common ground. In this context, she mentioned the Covid pandemic and the measures taken by the government against it.
The Junge Tat is under observation by the Federal Police (Fedpol), and several proceedings are underway against members of the right-wing extremist group. The Junge Tat gained notoriety around 2022 when it disrupted an event at which drag queens read to children.
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