Schweiger looks to put Radicals back on track
Switzerland’s centre-right Radical Party has elected Rolf Schweiger as its new president.
The corporate lawyer replaces Christiane Langenberger who stepped down after the party’s poor showing in last October’s parliamentary elections.
Schweiger, a 59-year-old senator from canton Zug, beat off his rival Georges Theiler, a member of the House of Representatives, by 192 votes to 95 in an election by party delegates on Friday.
The new party president thanked everyone for their support and said that he was very happy to have been elected.
But he added that he was well aware of the responsibilities of the job.
“My aim is to shake up the party and to make it a modern centre-right force,” Schweiger told delegates.
Schweiger faces the task of restoring the party to winning ways and mending the internal rift between the liberal and the conservative, more business-oriented, wings.
The Radical Party has appointed a working group to overhaul its strategy and halt the decline in voter support.
Fresh start
The Radicals were the main losers in October’s elections, with support falling to 17.3 per cent.
The result relegated the founding fathers of modern-day Switzerland to third place in parliament behind the rightwing Swiss People’s Party and the centre-left Social Democrats.
The Radicals are the second of Switzerland’s four main political parties to choose a new president in the wake of last year’s parliamentary elections.
The centre-left Social Democrats named their new head, Hans-Jürg Fehr, in March, while the centre-right Christian Democrats will decide on a successor to their interim president, Doris Leuthard, later this year.
swissinfo with agencies
The Radical Party is the third-biggest political force in Switzerland after voter support dropped to 17.3 per cent in last year’s parliamentary elections.
The centre-right party is represented by two members in cabinet and a total of 50 members in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The Radicals were the founding fathers of modern-day Switzerland in 1848.
The party is traditionally linked with Switzerland’s business community and considers itself committed to liberal values.
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