Do State Councilors have to stand for re-election?
Elected in 2013, Mauro Poggia, Serge Dal Busco and Antonio Hodgers will have spent ten years in government next year. They must say soon if they wish to re-enlist.
From left to right: Mr. Serge Dal Busco Councilor of State, Mr. Antonio Hodgers, Councilor of State, Mr. Mauro Poggia, Councilor of State.
STEEVE IUNCKER-GOMEZ
In 2023, six outgoing cantonal magistrates might stand for re-election to the Council of State. Three of them, the MCG Mauro Poggia, the centrist Serge Dal Busco and the Green Antonio Hodgers, share a characteristic: they will have already spent almost ten years in government. Their decision is not known but might fall soon. If they run and are re-elected, a third term would add five years to their careers, since the length of the legislature has lengthened since the new Constitution. But is spending fifteen years in government really reasonable?
On the face side, there is of course the knowledge of the files and the experience. But the socialist Charles Beer is not convinced: “I am a staunch supporter of term limits”, he confides. Elected in 2003, the former boss of the Department of Public Instruction did not stand for re-election in 2013. He might have but, according to him, a long mandate is too risky: “Over time, the capacity for renewal s fades, the risk of the magistrate being imprisoned increases.” Then looms the slow agony of the mandate of too much.
For Pierre-François Unger, former head of the Economy and Health, the idea of spending fifteen years on the Council of State seems surprising: “The advantage of four-year terms is that they allow take its marks during the first mandate, to achieve during the second and to cut what still exceeded during the third. But fifteen years is another matter… Time passes, we have applied our ideas and those of others and fatigue accumulates. Or else, it’s that we haven’t done anything before.”
