Executive Council of Basel-Stadt


The Executive Council is the executive of the Swiss canton of Basel-Stadt. The seven-member collegial body is elected by the people for a period of four years. The last election was held in October/November 2016. The presidency is directly elected by the people. The president of the Executive Council also serves as mayor for the city of Basel.

Current composition

As of 2012, the Executive Council was composed as follows:
NamePartyDepartment
Guy MorinGBDepartment of Culture and the Presidency, Mayor of Basel
Eva HerzogSPDepartment of Finance
Christoph BrutschinSPDepartment of Social Services, the Economy and the Environment
Hans-Peter WesselsSPDepartment of Construction and Transport
Baschi DürrFDPDepartment of Justice and Security
Christoph EymannLDPDepartment of Education
Lukas EngelbergerCVPDepartment of Health

2016 Executive Council elections

Results

In the first round of voting on the 23 October 2016, following candidates were elected:
NamePartyVotesNotes
Eva HerzogSP33576Incumbent
Christoph BrutschinSP29448Incumbent
Lukas EngelbergerCVP26635Incumbent
Conradin CramerLDP24078New, successor to Christoph Eymann
Elisabeth AckermannGB23546New, successor to Guy Morin

In the second round of voting on the 27 November 2016, following candidates were elected:
NamePartyVotesNotes
Hans-Peter WesselsSP26155Incumbent
Baschi DürrFDP22906Incumbent

As new president of the Executive Council and mayor of the city of Basel was elected:
NamePartyVotesNotes
Elisabeth AckermannGB31634New, successor to Guy Morin

Major candidates not elected

From the two main alliances two out of nine candidates failed to get elected:
NamePartyVotes Votes
Heidi MückBastA!1810521072
Lorenz NägelinSVP1726919084

Campaign

The campaign was a hard fought one, mainly because of the vacancy arising from the decision of Guy Morin not to stand in the 2016 election. This opened the up the opportunity for the centre-right alliance consisting of the Liberal Democratic Party, the Free Democratic Party, the Swiss People's Party and the Christian Democratic People's Party to gain a majority in the Executive for the first time since 2004. They nominated four candidates for a joint ticket. The centre-left also formed an alliance to defend their majority in the Executive Council and nominated a joint ticket consisting of five candidates.