An election for all seven members of the Federal Council, Switzerland's government, were held on 13 December 2023 for the 2024–2028 term. It followed the federal election held a month earlier and partly depended on its results.

Quick Facts All 7 Federal Councillors, First party ...

2023 Swiss Federal Council election

← 2019 (regular) ← 2022 (by-) 13 December 2023 2027 (regular) →
All 7 Federal Councillors
First party Second party   Party Swiss People's Social Democrats Elected Guy Parmelin 215 votes Élis. Baume-Schneider 151 votes   Albert Rösti 189 votes Beat Jans 134 votes   Third party Fourth party   Party FDP.The Liberals The Centre Elected Karin Keller-Sutter 176 votes Viola Amherd 201 votes   Ignazio Cassis 167 votes

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All Federal Councillors except Alain Berset were running for re-election. Per an informal agreement between the political parties known as the magic formula, incumbents are traditionally left unopposed and open seats are only contested by the incumbent's party, ensuring the partisan balance. The federal assembly elected Beat Jans to replace Alain Berset after three rounds of voting. All other councillors were re-elected.

Elections for President of the Swiss Confederation and Vice President of the Federal Council, as well as for Chancellor of Switzerland, also took place; Federal Councillor Viola Amherd was elected president for the year 2024 following an informal rotation agreement. After the election the federal departements were reshuffled. The Federal Department of Home Affairs (formerly led by Alain Berset) is now being led by Élisabeth Baume-Schneider, whose former department, the Federal Department of Justice and Police, is now being led by newly-elected Beat Jans.

In Switzerland, the 7-seat executive Federal Council is elected by the Federal Assembly (both chambers of the legislature sitting together); in practice it is apportioned between the parties following the unwritten agreement known as the "magic formula". The formula was followed from 1959 to 2003 and in a different composition between 2003 and 2007 and again since 2015. Since 2016 the composition has been: SVP 2 seats, SP 2 seats, FDP 2 seats, and Die Mitte (succeeding the CVP) 1 seat.

Federal councillors are traditionally re-elected until they step down; only four have ever lost re-election. Councillors tend to stand down during their term in order to ensure their party retains their seat and to allow their party to get more visibility at a moment other than shortly after a general election.^[1] These by-elections were held only ten months before the 2023 federal election.

On 21 June 2023, a few days after the results of the June referendums, social-democratic councillor Alain Berset announced he would resign effective 31 December, after serving for 12 years. He described the referendum of the amendment to the COVID-19 Act as an end to "the Covid cycle", which defined his third term as head of the Federal Department of Home Affairs.^[2] Following the existing precedent, only SP candidates were expected to stand for his seat.

In the previous Federal Council elections in 2022 when Simonetta Sommaruga resigned, her party, the SP chose to only nominate women as to ensure that the gender balance on the council would not be disturbed. Daniel Jositsch who had previously announced to run in 2022, then had to retract his candidacy but nevertheless received a significant amount of protest votes. During that election, he did not publicly encourage the federal assembly to not vote for him, which has been criticised by members of his party. Jositsch again stood for the nomination in 2023. After not being chosen, there was speculation that he would again receive protest votes, possibly even being elected in spite of not being nominated by his party.

Moreover, the Green party called the distribution of the Federal Council into question as they had previously done in 2019 on the ground that the right-wing parties SVP and FDP were in a majority on the Federal Council but had lost that majority in the federal assembly. Hence, they announced they would attack an unspecified seat of the FDP. While the SP shared the greens point of view, they did not officially support the green bid due to the other parties announcing that if the green candidate were to be elected the other parties would not support the official candidates of the SP in the election to succeed Alain Berset, which was to happen after the other members election.

The retirement of Alain Berset left the position of head of the Federal Department of Home Affairs open for the first time since 2011.

The composition of the Federal Assembly will depend on the composition of the National Council and Council of States after the 2023 Swiss federal election.

Due to the vacancy created by the resignation of Federal Chancellor Walter Thurnherr (The Centre), the following individuals had announced their candidacy:

• Viktor Rossi (GLP-ZH), Incumbent Federal Vice-Chancellor (2019–present)
• Nathalie Goumaz (SVP-FR), Incumbent General Secretarity of the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research (2019-present), Former General Secretarity of the Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport (2016-2018)
• Gabriel Lüchinger (SVP-BE), Head of the International Security Division of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs
• Lukas Gresch-Brunner (Independent), Incumbent General Secretary of the Federal Department of Home Affairs

After the elections, the newly elected council meets to assign the departments of the Federal administration to each councillor. The departments are attributed by a council decision; in practice, each member announces their preference in order of seniority leaving the newly-elected members last, and the council adopts their preferences. In 2018, as Viola Amherd and Karin Keller-Sutter were elected on the same day, the council chose to let Keller-Sutter choose earlier despite having been elected slightly later.^[16]

The resignation of Alain Berset left the Federal Department of Home Affairs open for the first time since 2011. In a surprise reshuffle Élisabeth Baume-Schneider took over the Department of Home Affairs after serving as head of the justice and police department for only one year. Newly-elected Beat Jans took over the Federal Justice and Police Department previously led by Baume-Schneider. The other departments remained with their previous heads.^[17] The reshuffle was announced on 14 December 2023 and took effect on 1 January 2024.