For one who has just made a bet with the company’s own history on the Run, has Samuel “Sami” Lanz almost maddeningly relaxed. Nervous? “Of course I’m nervous. Brutally nervous,” he says, and even if you look him long in the face, one is not sure whether he means it seriously now.
The Secretary-General of the FDP , 35’000 incoming Mails per year, 20’000 outgoing emails per year, leads its Secretariat as a command center of a military special unit. There may be nothing to say.
on The sixth floor of the new alley 20 in Bern is just a construction site, there is an “EOC,” an Election Operation Center (his neologism for: choice of the command center), his office is a maximum set up to be functional, the Whiteboard is in fact white, and at the door a quote is so incomprehensible as threatening: “politics is a subsidiary of the war”.
The dumbest time
In this war has lost Lanz a battle. It is a defeat to the silliest time. No other bourgeois party was in such good shape as the FDP, plus 33 mandates, it has made in the last cantonal elections, a winning party. So much winning party as in the history of the FDP.
Then Zurich. Minus a seat in the government, for the first Time ever, a Free Democrat sits in the Executive branch, minus two seats in the cantonal Parliament. The election Sunday was not the end, because the debt was distributed.
“In the case of this topic, you should always choose the Original, and that must give us pause to think,” said FDP-Nationalrat Christian water fall on the Radio, and was supported by all sorts of poisonous Tweets, disposed of the Young liberals, called the “back to the liberal values!” in the world.
“this subject” refers to water-free intimate environment – and climate protection policy, shortly before the elections of the FDP by a spectacular Interview of a party President, Petra Gössi re-launched. Those in the party who had always warned of a too-green-FDP, see the choice Sunday of Zurich as a confirmation of their fears. In fact, the first evaluations have shown that a considerable part of the green-liberal growth came at the expense of the FDP.
“the subject of The environment is still burning fierce.”Samuel Lanz, FDP Secretary General
“Maybe you have to look at it from the other side,” says Sami Lanz in his Headquarters in the old town of Bern. “Maybe it would have been worse if we had let our Intervention.” And at all: Zurich is Zurich. And not Switzerland.
Since 2017 party President Gössi and your party around the study Secretary of the environment, cheered on by feedback from the cantons, from the base. “The subject of burns, it burns longer, and it is still burning fierce,” says Lanz. Of course, one could talk about the Timing, of course, it would have been better to come even earlier with the theme. “But imagine the other scenario: We go into the elections, may lose and will come two months later. Impossible.” In addition, he is convinced: “The base wants.”
On the green stage
Earlier this week, on Tuesday evening, will meet a portion of this base in the industrial area of Küssnacht am Rigi, in the maintenance depot of the Christian AG. The maintenance depot is so poisonous green, it is more than ironic. Green-lit factory hall roof, green trucks, green mobile cranes, and even the Pavatex-boards are painted green.
“When my Grandfather founded the company, there were in the village shops, which were red, blue, and yellow. We had just left green. Today I am very happy about that.” Stefan Christian is a member of the Board of Directors of the Christian AG, FDP-member of the Parliament and the hosts for this Assembly of delegates of the FDP Schwyz. In the welcome address he told how part of his company all the houses here built back and out of the individual parts makes concrete. “Sustainable it is.”
At the place of residence of party President Petra Gössi today nominated the evening, the candidates for the Federal elections in the autumn. It is a spectacle, as it has become for the FDP in the past years. Sausages, free beer, a Band which performs to each candidate, the appropriate Song, and a President, at the (green!) Stage actually says: “We rock the.” The Band strikes up later on “We Will Rock You”: sure.
The big questions
The Assembly is, however, more than social Parteitrara and the Party of “öisere Petra” that apologizes for any missed ortspartei Assembly, and which is not too bad to organize the anniversary of the local costume group.
no. Here, too, in Küssnacht am Rigi, there is the big questions. The defeat in Zurich to the new strategy. “Environmental policy and the environment concerns all of us. We only have one environment,” says Gössi the delegates. “Until now, environmental policy is operated primarily from the left. It needs therefore, our recipes, our ideas.”
Shortly before the Nomination, the campaign Manager releases the word. Three people log on, no one is talking about the candidates, all on a theme: the environment. “I have huge pleasure as Petra for environmental issues sets in,” says one. “We’ve always been a party of the environment”, the next and the last: “congratulations, how steadfast are you in the past few days, the topic remained, Petra. We are one hundred percent to you.” The few Young liberals in the rear part of the yard, which had been expressed prior to the event are still critical of the green FDP, remain silent.
“We’ve always been a party of the environment.”
Two days later, in Bern, in the media center of the house. “Environmental policy is economic policy. And this is not a green coat, which we put on exclusively for the election year. This is serious,” says Petra Gössi and also says very similar things as in Küssnacht. Before the survey, with the help of the party wants to know whether the environmental issue is actually supported in the entire base. On a film about the President, it is written: “politicians must listen. Topics recording, move the people.”
at the end of June will be presented the results of the party President of the conference, a position paper is to give concrete proposals. How authentic all this is, whether the results are published – it is open. And yet, even the toughest of opponents of the new course do not want to appear too forward. He found it right, if the party will improve the communication in this topic, reinforcing, and fading, says Christian. “It is a repositioning of the party: the protection of the environment, the FDP acts according to the Maxim: Private in front of the state.”
The fear in the FDP
win If that helps, the elections in the fall? Or if it could harm? Water fall, Vice-President of the party, formulated ultra-cautious: “The climate issue is sure to be a campaign issue, not a question. How we should behave to us here, is to be discussed.”
There is this fear in the party to squander the victory. Who is a green FDP? Is this only a left-wing voice? And it doesn’t open a flank to the right?
It is almost like the end of the 90s beginning of the 00s-years, only with the opposite sign. After decades of Back-and-Forth, the party leadership decided at that time for the way to the right, for a position as an assistant and Junior partner to the SVP. The calculus did not, by the cooperation of the SVP benefited. In a group meeting, the then Finance Minister Kaspar Villiger said, it’s pointless, if you copy a product. “People will always buy the Original.”
Happening today the Same? How uncertain the outcome of this bet? “In the end it is a Risk assessment,” says Sami Lanz. “If I’m afraid that we are wrong? Of course. But I’m pretty sure it will come out differently.”
(editing Tamedia)
Created: 29.03.2019, 08:31 PM
