BREAKING: Amid Tinubu’s Trip To France, President Makes Surprise Decision To Quit Government (DETAILS)

BREAKING: Amid Tinubu’s Trip To France, President Makes Surprise Decision To Quit Government (DETAILS)

Swiss President Alain Berset announced Wednesday that he will quit the government at the end of 2023, in a surprise move after more than a decade of ministerial service.

Berset, 51, told his colleagues on Switzerland’s seven-member Federal Council government that he was planning to quit the body at the end of the year, saying it was “the right time to leave”.

The wealthy Alpine country’s presidency rotates annually among the council members. Berset joined the government in 2012 and is in his second spell as president, having previously served in 2018.

Swiss President Alain Berset looks on during a press conference in Bern on March 19, 2023. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP)

“This morning I told the head of the parliament, as well as my colleagues on the Federal Council, that I plan to leave the Federal Council at the end of this legislature, therefore at the end of the year,” Berset told a hastily-arranged press conference in the capital Bern.

“I have the feeling that I’ve accomplished what is possible. I have given everything,” he said.

Read Also ‘I Was Forced To Sleep With 50 Men In Seven Days’

Berset is Switzerland’s interior minister and as the minister in charge of health, he played a key role in the country’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

He was also a critical player in arranging the emergency takeover of the stricken bank Credit Suisse by its larger rival UBS over a weekend in March this year.

He feared Switzerland’s second-biggest bank would otherwise have imploded within days triggering domestic chaos and potentially a global banking crisis.

The Swiss will go to the polls on October 22 to elect new members of the National Council lower house of parliament, and the Council of States upper house, which represents the cantons that make up the Swiss confederation.

Seats on the Federal Council government rarely come up for grabs.

They are shared among the main political parties under a tacit decades-old agreement, known as “the magic formula”, which generally remains unaffected by power shifts in parliament but reflects the spirit of compromise that characterises Swiss democracy.

There are two new faces on the Federal Council this year, in the first changes in four years.

The president is first among equals on the council and represents the government to the outside world.

Berset is from the Socialist Party.

Vice-president Viola Amherd, the defence minister, will serve as president in 2024. She is from the centre-right Centre party.