Executive Council of Basel-Stadt

The Executive Council (Template:Lang-de) is the executive body 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 people directly elect the president. 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:

Name	Party	Department
Guy Morin	GB	Department of Culture and the Presidency, Mayor of Basel
Eva Herzog	SP	Department of Finance
Christoph Brutschin	SP	Department of Social Services, the Economy and the Environment
Hans-Peter Wessels	SP	Department of Construction and Transport
Baschi Dürr	FDP	Department of Justice and Security
Christoph Eymann	LDP	Department of Education
Lukas Engelberger	CVP	Department of Health

2016 Executive Council elections

Results

In the first round of voting on the 23 October 2016, following candidates were elected:

Name	Party	Votes	Notes
Eva Herzog	SP	33576	Incumbent
Christoph Brutschin	SP	29448	Incumbent
Lukas Engelberger	CVP	26635	Incumbent
Conradin Cramer	LDP	24078	New, successor to Christoph Eymann
Elisabeth Ackermann	GB	23546	New, successor to Guy Morin

In the second round of voting on the 27 November 2016, following candidates were elected:

Name	Party	Votes	Notes
Hans-Peter Wessels	SP	26155	Incumbent
Baschi Dürr	FDP	22906	Incumbent

As new president of the Executive Council and mayor of the city of Basel was elected:

Name	Party	Votes	Notes
Elisabeth Ackermann	GB	31634	New, successor to Guy Morin

Major candidates not elected

From the two main alliances two out of nine candidates failed to get elected:

Name	Party	Votes (1st round)	Votes (2nd round)
Heidi Mück	BastA!	18105	21072
Lorenz Nägelin	SVP	17269	19084

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.