Behind every billionaire there is a story!

Swiss ambush ousts Blocher

Christoph Blocher, Switzerland’s leading rightwing -politician, was ejected from government yesterday in a shock parliamentary vote that called into question the country’s decades-old system of consensus politics.

The failure of the billionaire industrialist to be re-elected as a minister, following an ambush by leftwing and centrist foes, could push his ultranationalist Swiss People’s party (SVP) into opposition and open the way for a more Anglo-Saxon, adversarial style of politics.

SVP leaders last night repeated their threat to pull out of Switzerland’s traditional four-party coalition government if Mr Blocher, justice minister in the out-going administration, were not re-elected.

Although the SVP emerged from general elections in October as Switzerland’s most powerful party, with 29 per cent of the vote, Mr Blocher yesterday found himself, to general astonishment, ousted as legislators backed a relatively unknown regional politician for his place in government.

read the rest published by FT here:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ae1a1a24-a91c-11dc-ad9e-0000779fd2ac.html