It is a great honour for me to be able to represent the people of Zug in Bern - says Manuela Weichelt-Picard

It was rather appropriate that Manuela Weichelt-Picard, the former head of the Zug cantonal government who won enough support, 6,292 votes, to become elected to the National Council on Sunday, the first woman from Zug ever to be elected to Bern, was wearing green when she watched the results of the elections at the Commercial Business School in Zug, with her party, the Alternative Green Party (ALG) achieving 19.3 percent of all votes cast in the canton that day, as can be seen in the chart indicating the percentage of votes each party obtained in elections to the National Council going back to 2007.

In winning this seat in the National Council, Weichelt- Picard takes over the seat previously held by Bruno Pezzatti of the FDP party, who stood down. She will be joining the two other representatives of Zug, Thomas Aeschi of the SVP party and Gerhard Pfister of the CVP, who regained their seats there.

“It is a great honour for me to be able to represent the people of Zug in Bern,” she said when it was clear she had won, adding it was the reward for all the hard work she had put into her campaign. She mentioned that having a period away from politics after deciding not to seek re- election to the cantonal government had been very important for her. “Naturally, that I was known through my involvement at cantonal governmental level helped me enormously,” she said.

Happy, too, with this result was Andreas Lustenberger, also of the ALG party, despite failing to achieve a seat in the National Council himself. He was particularly pleased with the increase in the percentage of votes the ALG party achieved (see chart), adding how this could not have been achieved without the support of the CSP and SP parties. As Esther Haas, the deputy leader of the GLP party, said, “Now we want to show Bern what we can do.”

For her part, Barbara Gysel, leader of the of the SP party of the canton of Zug, was also happy, having not expected such a good result for the ALG.

Equally happy with the result he achieved, 15,359 votes, was Thomas Aeschi of the SVP party, saying this was a result of all the work he had put in for the canton of Zug, adding how he would continue to support the canton with the same level of energy and commitment. He was particularly happy the SVP remained the most popular party in the canton (see chart).

Speaking in her capacity as leader of the CVP party of Zug, Laura Dittli was very pleased with the result achieved by Peter Hegglin, with 19,909 votes, who will continue to represent Zug in the Council of States, and Gerhard Pfister, the leader of the national CVP party, with 13,872 votes, who will continue to represent Zug in the National Council.