Who is the head of govenment in Switzerland?

The head of state in Switzerland is the Swiss Federal Council.

The german name is "Bundesrat".

It consists of 7 people leading the country as a group with each of them holding a certain department.

Their names are:

Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf

Moritz Leuenberger

Micheline Calmy-Rey

Pascal Couchepin

Samuel Schmid

Doris Leuthard

Hans-Rudolf Merz

While the responsibility for the executive of an department lies only in the hands of one person, all major decisions are being made together by debating and voting.

One of them also has the responsibility to moderate those meetings, which gives this person the title of "the president". (slightly missleading naming, I know)

This task is being forwarded every year to the next "younger" member of the council (age of service).

Once a decision has been made, the council supports this decision as a unity (there's no "I've voted against it", just "the council decided to...")

Once elected by the Parliament, a member of council remains in office for 4 years. However, it is usualy the case that they remain in office (getting re-elected every 4 years) until they retire or step back themselves.

Have a look at Wikipedia, they have a pretty informative site on this topic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Federal_Council

hope this helps

Matt

President Pascal Couchepin.

President of the Swiss Confederation

Bundespräsident (German)

Président de la Confédération suisse (French)

Presidente della Confederazione Elvetica (Italian)

President da la confederaziun svizra (Romansch)

Pascal Couchepin

Source:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world...