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) 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,