Thierry Burkart gives up FDP Presidium-balance sheet and reasons

After four years there is an end: FDP President Thierry Burkart released his office in October, although he is a lot of fun. The party has communicated more pointed under his aegis and yet lost many elections. A balance.

He wanted to be an arsonist. In his inaugural speech as a FDP party president, Thierry Burkart emphasized that Switzerland again needs more “liberal fire”. Everyone would have to fight that this fire in the cities and in the country is more likely to be more likely. « Long live the FDP, live Switzerland, » Burkart closed at the delegate meeting in October 2021.

This was also available four years later, in the FDP parliamentary group on Tuesday afternoon. This is how Thierry Burkart reports. He had just opened his party colleagues that he resigned in October. Earlier than expected.

There was no liberal surface fire under his leadership. The result in the last federal elections in particular « disappointed » him, he confessed to the media. It was the worst result in the history of the liberals. The FDP was only in front of the middle. At the latest now there was a lot of things about the question of whether and how long the free -senses can keep their second Federal Council seat. A debacle for a party that has always defined itself as a state.

Burkart looked for salvation in a tight bourgeois course. While his predecessor Petra Gössi flirted with green concerns, Burkart stretched to the right. Orders the party a significantly sharper migration course, wanted to tilt the nuclear power plant again and did not shy away from pithy words. More and more often, Burkart reached the flame thrower to heat the liberal fire.

It looked briefly as if the new course would also bear electoral fruits. But the gains in the cantonal elections in Aargau and in Schaffhausen last autumn proved to be a straw fire. This spring followed clear defeats in the cantons of Valais, Neuchâtel and Solothurn. Particularly bitter: In Solothurn, the FDP also lost a government seat.

The alarm clock stands for the new communication style

Ideologically sharp right, methodically left. Burkart used the social democrats. With targeted, well -controlled campaigns from the party headquarters (for example in the field of education). And when the Federal Council announced that the tax benefits in the 2nd and 3rd column to delete, the liberals launched a petition. Against her own finance minister.

With Jonas Project, he as Secretary General installed a man who works with the verbal two -handed. Burkart wrote to the former journalist in the tasks of communicating pointers. Projer implements: « Federal Councilor Jans, please wake up » the FDP titles a media release. The former “Arena” presenter also invented the famous alarm clock, with which Burkart through Switzerland-and which he also placed in every statement on Tuesday. The FDP is the party for those people who « put the alarm clock in the morning ». The finance and business party is now also a Büezer party.

Rumors of resignation after the elections

With all hardness and determination: Burkart also suffered from office. The FDP chair is one of the most demanding in Bundesbern. The expectations are high, the fall height too. If the party will once again be shares in the upcoming elections in 2027, the second Federal Council seat is likely to be away.

The pressure left traces. Already after the lost federal elections in 2023, Burkart worked quite out, it said. In December of that year, rumors circulated in the party that he could throw the beggar. He remained. He often reacted thinly to criticism. The NZZ, the FDP’s main sheet, he fell publicly.

The dispute in the party has a tradition

A « feeling of going » is now needed, said Burkart at the start. He also summarizes the cohesion several times when he canceled the cancellation. At the same time, his party is torn in an important question: the European dossier splits the FDP. Burkart is one of the skeptics of the agreement with the EU. He spoke of « different views », but it didn’t concern him, « if we don’t all have the same opinion ».

Political scientist Michael Hermann judges the condition of the FDP. Burkart leaves his successor to a party that faces the sample test. And that has a lot to lose: Burkart had announced that the FDP would do without one of its two Federal Council seats if it was overtaken by the middle in the next elections. That is a mortgage for his successor, says Hermann: « After all, he will no longer be responsible for this statement himself. »

Dispute in the party has a certain tradition. Burkart also took over a visibly disputed FDP in 2021, says Hermann. The Aargauer promised to bring calm and clarity into the party.

Failed due to your own expectations

« Measured by this is not exhilarating, » says Michael Hermann. « Burkart failed above all because of his own requirements. » Also because the expectations of the leaders in the party are very high and the erosion was not sustainable. Some of the party is a retractor at the worst moment, says Hermann: « The captain leaves the ship in the most difficult waters. »

Burkart sees it very differently. The ship is on track and in very good condition. « The captain goes off on board with a clear conscience and a good feeling, » said Burkart. He currently has « no ambitions on a Federal Council job, » he assured on Tuesday. He wanted to make « factual policy » again and leave party politics to his successors. The arsonist may no longer ignite.