**When it comes to election to the Federal Council, some cantonal coats of arms shine brighter than others...** Historic admin

The first federal councillor from Basel in over 50 years

The canton of Basel-Stadt had to wait a long time to be represented on the Federal Council. After the election of Hans-Peter Tschudi in 1959, it was 64 years before the next candidate from the city won a seat on the national executive body. Both events were cause for widespread celebration.

Noëmi Crain Merz

Noëmi Crain Merz is a historian, university lecturer and curator.

Beat Jans has not even been in office for a hundred days and is already being hailed by the media as the most popular Federal Councillor. And to this day, the record for the most votes in a Federal Council election is also held by a native of Basel: Social Democrat Hans-Peter Tschudi was re-elected in December 1971 with 220 votes – the best result ever. Yet Basel often feels misunderstood by Bern – the Swiss capital and seat of the federal government – and by the rest of Switzerland. ‘Dear Swiss people, don’t you like us?’ was the headline in the daily Basler Zeitung in December 2023, while the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper interpreted the mood in Basel as mistrust towards Bern. A chronicler on the Basler Jahrbuch in 1959 took a similar view – describing “a political inferiority complex among large sections of the population towards their compatriots.” Why this unease? Federal councillors from Basel are extremely rare. Not only before Jans’ election, but also before Tschudi’s, people had been waiting half a century for a seat on the national executive body. Even when Eva Herzog, the formidable councillor of states from Basel, stood for election to the Federal Council in December 2022 with the backing of the entire Basel government, it didn’t work out. Of the 122 people who have been elected to the Federal Council to date, just three hail from Basel-Stadt.

**Basel and the Rhine. Aerial photograph by Eduard Spelterini, c. 1900.** ETH Library

Things could have been different. Johann Jakob Stehlin, the first native of Basel to be elected to the Federal Council in 1855, just a few years after the founding of the federal state, declined the post, preferring the position of mayor of his home town to a seat on the national executive body. So Basel didn’t get to properly celebrate until March 1897. In the election to replace Emil Frey, the only federal councillor to this day from Basel-Landschaft, two candidates from Basel-Stadt stood against each other. With a nine vote lead, the radical democrat Ernst Brenner beat his liberal rival Paul Speiser. The 40-year-old received a ceremonial welcome and rapturous applause when he returned to his home city two days later. Thousands of people accompanied the procession, and the celebrations featured laudatory speeches, men’s choirs and gymnastics displays.

Portrait of Federal Councillor Emil Frey. — **Federal Councillor Emil Frey...** Museumsverbund Baselland

Federal Councillor Ernst Brenner in a photograph from 1907. — **... was succeeded by radical democrat from Basel, Ernst Brenner in 1897.** Wikimedia

Decades passed before Basel celebrated another Federal Councillor of its own. Half a century after Brenner’s election, once again two candidates from Basel battled it out in Bern and once again it was a liberal against a radical democrat. Yet neither Nicolas Jaquet nor Cantonal and National Councillor Alfred Schaller, who was the official candidate of the Free Democrats, were elected in 1954. The public recognised the irony and the two failed would-be federal councillors were a theme at that year’s Carnival. But the disappointment at the failure of candidates from Basel was all too obvious. The lines in the Schnitzelbank (satirical rhyme sung at Carnival) referring to Basel’s lack of representation on the Federal Council echoed the sentiments of many local people. Four years later, the wait was over. When member of the Council of States and former Cantonal Councillor Hans-Peter Tschudi was elected to the Federal Council by his party on 17 December 1959 without a nomination, the euphoria in his home city knew no bounds, and people from all parties joined the celebrations. The liberal democrat director of education even allowed schools to close in honour of the Social Democrats so that children in Basel could witness the arrival of the 46-year-old federal councillor the following day.

**Hans-Peter Tschudi in an interview after his election to the Federal Council in 1959.** Swiss National Museum / ASL

In his victory parade from the station to the Stadtcasino concert hall, the newly-elected Tschudi was not only accompanied by Federal Councillor Friedrich Traugott Wahlen and Basel’s national councillors, but also elephants from the city’s zoo. The whole of Basel turned out for the occasion, while a DC-4 aircraft belonging to the now-defunct local airline Balair circled overhead. Carnival cliques playing drums and whistles paraded through the streets until midnight, although the new federal councillor had long since disappeared to attend a reception at the Mustermesse.

**Federal Councillor Hans-Peter Tschudi (in front) is greeted by a parade of elephants after his election.** Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt

And more recently, in December 2023, Basel again put on a big celebration for Beat Jans, previously president of the Executive Council of Basel-Stadt, before he took up his new post in Bern. But instead of aircraft and exotic animals, a rap performance by the newly-elected magistrate caused quite a stir. While there was a feeling of great satisfaction that the canton was finally represented on the Federal Council again, Basel’s presence in Bern, not only on the executive body but also in the Swiss parliament, has significantly declined since Tschudi’s term of office. Of eight seats on the National Council at the time, there are only four remaining in 2024, and the canton only has one seat on the Council of States.

**Federal Councillor Beat Jans (far right) with his fellow federal councillors in the official 2024 Federal Council photo.** Swiss Federal Chancellery

If we take the intervals between the previous elections of federal councillors from Basel as a benchmark – it was almost 63 years between the election of Brenner and that of Tschudi, and another 64 before Jans was elected – the next person to be elected to the Federal Council from Basel would be in 2088. But things can also turn out very differently: the canton of Geneva – which as a city canton on the edge of Switzerland has a lot in common with Basel-Stadt – showed how quick the transition can be from outsider to insider in Bern. Having never been represented on the Federal Council since 1919, Ruth Dreifuss was elected as the first federal councillor from Geneva in 1993, immediately followed by the second, Micheline Calmy-Rey, in 2003.

The Swiss parliament celebrates newly elected Federal Councillor Beat Jans from Basel, 50 years after the departure of Hans-Peter Tschudi. SRF

More of: 20th / 21st century Politics

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