Greens nominate Recordon for cabinet

The Green Party, eyeing a seat in Switzerland's seven-member cabinet, has put forward Luc Recordon for the cabinet elections on December 10.

Recordon, 53, was chosen unanimously by the Greens, who on Friday said they didn’t want to see Christoph Blocher “or one of his clones” fill the cabinet hole left by Samuel Schmid, who is stepping down.

At last year’s cabinet elections parliament’s refusal to re-elect the controversial Blocher, from the rightwing Swiss People’s Party, caused shockwaves in the Swiss political world.

Recordon, who helped launch the attack against Blocher, was the Green Party’s official challenger then but withdrew his candidacy in favour of the People’s Party’s Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, who replaced Blocher as justice minister.

The Zurich branch of the People’s Party has signalled strong support for Christoph Blocher to return to the cabinet by naming him its sole candidate.

Recordon was born with Holt-Oram syndrome, meaning no thumbs, no tibias (shin bones) and usually a weak heart. But despite his disability he completed studies in engineering and law and nurtured an interest in politics. His career at a federal level began when he was elected to the House of Representatives in 2003. Four years later he won a seat in the Senate for his home canton of Vaud.

The Greens won 9.6 per cent of the vote in last year’s parliamentary elections. They have 20 people in the House of Representatives, one in the Senate and more than 200 in cantonal parliaments.