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Switzerland is a federal republic, and perhaps the closest state in the world to a direct democracy. For any change in the constitution, a referendum is mandatory; for any change in a law, a referendum can be requested. In practice, the people have the last word in every change of law some interest group disagrees with.1 Executive branch
The Swiss Federal Council is a seven-member executive council ("cabinet") that heads the executive branch. It is elected by the Federal Assembly for a four-year term. Present members are: Joseph Deiss, Samuel Schmid, Micheline Calmy-Rey, Pascal Couchepin, Christoph Blocher, Hans-Rudolf Merz and Moritz Leuenberger. See also: List of members of the Swiss Federal Council.
The largely ceremonial President of the Confederation and Vice-President are elected by the Federal Assembly from among the members of the Federal Council for one-year terms that run concurrently. The current President and Vice President are Joseph Deiss and Samuel Schmid, respectively.
The Swiss executive is one of the most stable governments worldwide. From 1959Events January-February January 1 Cultivars of plants named after this date must be named in a modern language, not in Latin. January 1 Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when forces of Fidel Castro advance January 2 CBS Radio cuts four soap operas: Bac to 20032003 is a common year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar), and also: The International Year of Freshwater The European Disability Year Summary Perhaps the defining global event of the year 2003 was the Invasion of Iraq launched by the U the Federal Council was composed of a coalition of all major parties in the same ratio: 2 Free Democratic PartyThe Freisinnig-Demokratische Partei FDP (in French: Parti radical-democratique PRD and in Italian: Partito Liberale-Radicale Svizzero PLR is a free market liberal party in Switzerland. The official english translation of the party's name is Free Democrati, 2 Social DemocraticThe Social Democratic Party of Switzerland (also rendered as Socialist Party of Switzerland, in German: Sozialdemokratische Partei der Schweiz (SPS French Parti socialiste suisse (PSS Italian Partito Socialista Svizzero Romansh Partida Socialdemocrata de, 2 Christian DemocraticThe Christian Democratic People's Party of Switzerland (Also called as Christan-Democratic Party, German: Christlich Demokratische Volkspartei (CVP French: Parti Democrate-Chretien Suisse (PDC Italian: Partito Popolare Democratico Svizzero (PPD Romansh: P, and 1 Swiss People's PartyThe Swiss People's Party (SVP) (also redirect as Democratic Union of the Centre German: Schweizerische Volkspartei French: Union Democratique du Centre Italian: Unione Democratica del Centro Romansh: Uniun Democratica dal Center is a nationalist political. Changes in the council occur in practice only, if one of the members resigned--this member was then replaced by someone from the same party (and preferably also the same language group and sex).
This "magic formula" has also been criticised--in the 1960sCenturies: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s Years: 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 Events and trends The 1960s was a turbulent decade of change around for excluding leftist opposition parties, in the 1980s for excluding the emerging Green party, and after the 1999 election particularly by the People's Party, which had by then grown from the fourth largest to the largest party. In the elections of 2003 the People's Party (formerly the smallest of the 4 parties represented in the Federal Council) gained a plurality of seats in the National Council and received (effective January 1, 2004) a second seat in the Federal Council, reducing the share of the Christian Democratic party to 1 seat.
