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
Chancellor of Germany (1949–present) Walter Scheel was appointed as Acting Chancellor and served for nine days until the election of Helmut Schmidt on 16 May 1974. The 18th and current Vice Chancellor of Germany is Olaf Scholz, who also serves as Federal Minister of Finance in the Fourth Merkel cabinet. Unlike in other parliamentary legislatures, the "Bundestag" or "Federal Diet" (lower house of the German Federal Parliament) cannot remove the chancellor with a traditional motion of no confidence. Instead, the removal of a chancellor is only possible if a majority of the "Bundestag" members agree on a successor, who is then immediately sworn in