Pascale Bruderer did not make a career in the SP because of, but rather despite, her political stance. Now she surprises her party once more.
Pascale Bruderer founded the U-35 club with Toni Brunner and Ursula Wyss.
Her departure from the political stage was to be final. “Federal councilors live almost exclusively for politics, I can’t imagine a life like that,” said Pascale Bruderer in September 2019 in an interview with the NZZ. Three years later everything looks different again for the once most popular young politician in Switzerland. The woman from Aargau is considering whether she wants to become a federal councillor. She wants to inform about her decision on Tuesday.
Pascale Bruderer and the office of Federal Councilor – that would fit. The now 45-year-old put a political career in the fast lane. In 1997 she was the youngest elected local politician in Switzerland as a member of the municipal council of the city of Baden. When she moved up to the national parliament in 2002, she was the youngest national councilor up to that point. In the 2009/10 office year, she presided over the Grand Chamber. A year later, after more than sixty years, she helped the SP of the Canton of Aargau regain a seat in the Council of States.
Few corners and edges
Bruderer is a bridge builder, a talented communicator who has always been well received by the bourgeois parties. She was considered “everybody’s darling” in parliament, but also as a career planner in her own right, who deliberately politicized without rough edges so as not to block her way into the state government. It was all the more surprising that the mother of two announced her resignation before the 2019 elections.
She started a new career as a partner and board member of IT startup Crossiety, which provides digital solutions for communities. In addition, Bruderer sits on the board of directors of Bernexpo and the TX Group. A few months ago she founded a new company that will be active in the field of cryptocurrencies.
During her 17-year tenure in Bundesbern, the political scientist was anything but a heavyweight, and she hardly had an impact on important parliamentary bills. Her tireless commitment to equality for people with disabilities is remembered. Her commitment comes from the fact that some of her mother’s relatives are hard of hearing or deaf.
Unlike many young people from today’s generation of the SP, Bruderer did not consciously play politics, where you are recruited as a young activist, preside over the Young Socialists and then move into parliament as a professional politician. She was socialized in the handball club, with which she made it to the national league B.
Bruderer was never interested in party political calculations. Because of this, she repeatedly came into conflict with her comrades. She voted against the early shutdown of the Beznau nuclear power plant and refused to support her own party’s inheritance tax initiative. She was also always suspicious of overcoming capitalism as a goal.
The fact that she was one of the initiators of the “reform-oriented platform in the SP” at the end of 2016 also brought her little sympathy within the party. However, social-liberal positions in the left-leaning party never had it easy, and the influence of the platform always remained modest. In addition, Bruderer’s resignation weakened the reformers. You never demanded that the party as a whole move to the right, said Bruderer in the “Aargauer Zeitung”. “But I am committed to ensuring that the social-liberal wing is also increasingly perceived within this range.”
It is all the more astonishing that two other founding members of the reform-oriented platform, Bernese government councilor Evi Allemann and Zurich Councilor of States Daniel Jositsch, could currently envisage a Federal Council candidacy. Basel Councilor Eva Herzog is also considered to be non-ideological, at least when it comes to financial and economic issues. As far as political orientation is concerned, Bruderer would not necessarily represent an enrichment of the candidates available for selection.
Comeback of former young politicians
Together with Toni Brunner (SVP) and her party colleague Ursula Wyss, Pascale Bruderer belonged to a generation of young talents at the beginning of the century who brought new impetus to the Bernese political scene. Despite the shawm sounds of the SVP father Christoph Blocher, Brunner has decided not to make a political comeback. It will be interesting to see whether Bruderer can resist the temptation.