Walter Thurnherr Energy and Communications in 2011 as her chief of staff. He stood for election to succeed Corina Casanova as Federal Chancellor of Switzerland on 9 December 2015, as the first unopposed candidate in ninety years, and was elected by the Swiss Federal Assembly with 230 votes (out of 234 possible). He assumed office on 1 January 2016. Walter Thurnherr Walter Thurnherr (born 11 July 1963) is the Federal Chancellor of Switzerland since 1 January 2016. Born in Muri, Thurnherr graduated as a physicist at the ETH Zürich. In 1989, he joined the ranks of Switzerland's diplomatic corps. In 2002, he
Federal Council (Switzerland) 2007 till 2010, when Simonetta Sommaruga was elected as the fourth woman in government in place of Moritz Leuenberger, putting men in minority for the first time in history. Also remarkable is the fact that the eighth non-voting member of government, the Chancellor, who sets the government agenda, was also a woman. In total, there have been seven female Councillors in the period 1989 to present: Until 1999, the Constitution mandated that no canton could have more than one representative on the Federal Council. Until 1987, the place of origin was used to determine which canton a Federal Councilor was