Government affair in Bern: The Swiss “Corona Leaks”

Swiss politics is in turmoil. During the pandemic, have tabloid media been given advance notice of planned government action? Special investigators and Parliament are now dealing with this.

It is an affair with many unanswered questions – and just as many names. Because even when the scandal was named, there was disagreement.

Berset affair, Ringier scandal, Corona leaks, state affair: these terms have dominated the headlines of the Swiss media since mid-January. These report almost daily on new twists and interpretations of the political and media scandal.

Zurich media sociologist Linards Udris thinks “perhaps we should just talk about a ‘leaks affair'”. Because then all leaks are meant at once.

A chance find

It started a good two years ago with the so-called “crypto leaks”. Confidential information from an investigation report into a secret service affair involving the Swiss company Crypto AG was leaked to the media in 2020.

Since then, an “extraordinary federal public prosecutor” has been investigating these leaks.

Peter Lauener, until June 2022 close confidant and head of communications of the then Health and Interior Minister Alain Berset, the current Swiss President, is particularly in the spotlight.

How did “Blick” get confidential information?

It’s about emails from Lauener to Marc Walder, head of the Ringier media group, which publishes the tabloids “Blick” and “Sonntagsblick”. The e-mails suggest that the boss of the Ringier leaves was exclusively informed in advance about the government’s corona policy.

This correspondence, in turn, was published in the newspaper “Switzerland at the weekend” in January – headline: “The secret Corona protocols”.

The FDP politician Matthias Michel calls the explosive e-mails a coincidence. The federal prosecutor investigating the secret service affair discovered something he wasn’t even looking for. It’s like a by-catch when fishing, says Michel: “You’re actually looking for trout and you find a pike.”

Michel is the chairman of one of the two audit committees of the Swiss Parliament, which now also want to take a closer look at the alleged corona leaks. Because the affair, according to Michel, has a special political dimension.

Another media culture

It is nothing unusual in Germany for the media to report in advance what is leaked to them from government circles. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s decision on the issue of tank deliveries to Ukraine, for example, was a breaking report from “Spiegel” and “Süddeutsche Zeitung” on the eve of Scholz’s official statement – completely scandal-free.

It’s different in Switzerland. It has to do with the special political system. The Swiss government, the Bundesrat, is made up of representatives of the four largest parties – from the right-wing SVP to the Social Democrats. All decisions must be made by consensus, across very different party lines.

When the communications chief of the Social Democratic Minister of Health leaks confidential information to certain media, of all things, in the context of the highly controversial Corona policy, this is seen as a means of pressure and propaganda. Not only with a view to the media public, but also to the other members of the Federal Council.

consensus at risk?

The Zurich media sociologist Linards Udris explains: “One really has this desire for this body to reach a consensus. And if the perception arises that someone is trying to put pressure on this body, then that doesn’t go down very well.” Even if this type of assertion of interests is seen as a normal part of politics in many other countries.

But even in consensus-oriented Switzerland, the interests of the individual parties are the focus this year. There are parliamentary elections in autumn, after which the seven members of the Federal Council will be re-elected.

The citizens react calmly

For Berset and his party, the Social Democrats, the “leaks affair” is not a good start to the election year. The party with the most votes in Switzerland, the right-wing populist SVP, is demanding the resignation of the health minister.

But while the affair has been causing a great deal of excitement in Bern and in the media for weeks, it seems to have left people in the country surprisingly cold. According to a recent survey, Berset is still one of the most popular politicians in Switzerland.

The “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” quotes the political scientist and author of the survey, Michael Hermann: Many Swiss do not see the events “as a scandal, but as an affair in which the media and politicians are mutually inflated”.