Switzerland’s women cabinet ministers

Elizabeth Kopp, Radical Party

Switzerland’s first-ever female cabinet minister, she took over the justice and police ministry in 1984. She was forced to resign, however, in 1988, following allegations that she tipped off her businessman husband about federal investigations into a company with which he was connected. Kopp was later cleared of charges that she had breached rules on official secrecy.

Ruth Dreifuss, Social Democrats

Elected in 1993, she was the Social Democrats’ second choice for cabinet. Parliament did not elect the party’s preferred candidate, Christian Brunner, who was the victim of what many regarded as a highly offensive media campaign, which included criticism of her hairstyle, her shoes, and her private life. Women’s organisations staged several large demonstrations before Dreifuss finally succeeded in becoming Switzerland’s second female cabinet minister.

Ruth Metzler, Christian Democrats

Elected in 1999, she served as justice and police minister before being voted out of the government in 2003 in favour of Swiss People’s Party candidate, Christoph Blocher. Critics say parliament did not show the same loyalty to Metzler as they did to the male Christian Democrat minister, Joseph Deiss.

Micheline Calmy-Rey, Social Democrats

Elected in 2002, she is Switzerland’s foreign minister and now the only woman in the cabinet. In the run-up to the election the Swiss press made much of the fact that Calmy-Rey would be the first grandmother in the government. Since she took office, her attempts to promote conflict resolution in North Korea and the Middle East, and her demand to express Switzerland’s opposition to the war in Iraq in person to Colin Powell, have been described by some of her male colleagues and impetuous and ill-judged.