President of Switzerland, Alain Berset on Wednesday announced his plan to exit office at the end of 2023, after more than a decade of ministerial service.
He 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 country’s presidency rotates annually among the council members.
Berset, 51, joined the government in 2012 and is in his second spell as president, having previously served in 2018.
“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.
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.
Vice-president Viola Amherd, the defence minister, will serve as president in 2024. She is from the centre-right Centre party.
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.
