Hans-Peter Amrein, Canton Councilor from Küsnacht, is angry about Domenik Ledergerber’s candidacy as party president of the SVP – and draws the consequences.
Hans-Peter Amrein speaks of a “coup attempt” by the party leadership.
One of the most pugnacious figures of the Zurich SVP has had enough: Hans-Peter Amrein, cantonal councilor from Küsnacht, announced on Sunday that he was leaving the cantonal SVP with immediate effect. In a statement he writes: “This decision is not easy for me, but the way in which the party leadership, the office of the party leadership and the parliamentary group leadership of the SVP of the canton of Zurich are currently acting leaves me no other choice.”
When asked by the NZZ, the cantonal council gave one reason in particular: on May 11, the party leadership announced that Domenik Ledergerber, cantonal councilor from Herrliberg, should succeed the outgoing party president Benjamin Fischer. Amrein speaks of a “coup attempt”. Instead of using a search committee as usual and listening to the base, the party leadership acted alone. “It doesn’t work that way,” says Amrein.
He describes the announcement of Fischer’s resignation and Ledergerber’s candidacy a few days before the local elections on May 15 as “absolutely amateurish”; in various communities, SVP exponents stand for the presidency of the executive. “A few hundred votes can be decisive in the elections – you don’t issue such a message.” This approach had “extremely damaged” the party.
With the departure from the cantonal party, Amrein also has to give up the presidency of the SVP Küsnacht. However, Amrein will not leave the SVP completely. He remains a member of the SVP in a Bernese section, he says; He doesn’t want to say more about it.
In the cantonal council, which he has been a member of since 2011, Amrein is already politicizing outside of the SVP parliamentary group. He had left the parliamentary group twice: in 2015 he suspended his membership and then gave it up completely because he felt disavowed by the then parliamentary group leader Jürg Trachsel in connection with the election of a substitute judge for the construction appeals court. After a “clarifying conversation” a few weeks later, he rejoined. The second exit followed at the end of 2020.
Amrein intends to hold office as a cantonal councilor until the end of the current legislature. He has not yet decided whether and how he will stand in the cantonal elections on February 13, 2023. He is considering competing with his own list.