Vice-Chancellor of Switzerland Oswald Sigg was named successor to Vice-Chancellor and Federal Council spokesman Achille Casanova. With Federal Chancellor Annemarie Huber-Hotz and the other Vice-Chancellorship conferred to Corina Casanova (no relationship to Achille Casanova), the three key roles in the Federal Chancellery were held by Swiss Germans. Remarkably enough, though, when Corinna Casanova was elected Federal Chancellor three years later, the nomination of Thomas Helbling as her successor, another Swiss German, raised no such public criticism. At the time, the "Tages-Anzeiger" speculated that this might be due to the Latin cantons aiming for the post of Oswald Sigg, due to retire a bit
Federal Council (Switzerland) for the Federal Counciland indeed the institution of the Council itselfhas remained unchanged to this day, even though Swiss society has changed profoundly since. The 1848 Constitution was one of the few successes of the Europe-wide democratic revolutions of 1848. In Switzerland, the democratic movement was ledand the new federal state decisively shapedby the "Radicals" (presently the Free Democratic Party, FDP). After winning the "Sonderbund War" (the Swiss civil war) against the Catholic cantons, the Radicals at first used their majority in the Federal Assembly to fill all the seats on the Federal Council. This made their former war opponents,