BLOCHER-ROSCHACHER ROILS SWISS CONSENSUS POLITICS

UNCLAS BERN 000896

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EUR/AGS AND INR/EU

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV SNAR SZ
SUBJECT: BLOCHER-ROSCHACHER ROILS SWISS CONSENSUS POLITICS


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Summary
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1. (SBU) The Blocher-Roschacher affair is for the most part about
Federal Councilor (and Justice Minister) Blocher's role in the July
2006 resignation of Federal Prosecutor Valentin Roschacher. The key
question hanging in the air is whether Blocher abused his office as
Justice Minister to exert undue pressure on Roschacher to resign, or
worse, was involved in a secret plot trying to oust Roschacher.
Though this complex saga appears far from over, it thus far has
generated one of the worst bouts of bickering and public accusations
in modern Swiss politics. However, barring some further sensational
development, we should not expect Blocher to resign or be removed
from office. The most likely effect of the affair will be to
galvanize already committed supporters in the Swiss political camps,
rather than increase the support for one party or another. End
summary.

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Background: The "Ramos Affair"
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2. (U) In July 2006, former Federal Prosecutor Valentin Roschacher
announced his resignation. He previously had weathered some
domestic criticism in 2004 for alleged mismanagement and for a
terrorism cooperation agreement he concluded with the USG. However,
his 2006 resignation was made amidst mounting public pressure
following a Swiss newspaper article alleging that Roschacher had
played an instrumental role in engaging a convicted Columbian drug
trafficker, Jose Manuel Ramos, for an undercover operation in
Switzerland. Ramos reportedly had spent 12 years in a U.S. prison
on drug charges.


3. (U) Information provided by Ramos purportedly prompted an
investigation against a Swiss private banker, Oskar Holenweger, on
suspicion of money-laundering. The investigation ultimately led to
Holenweger's personal ruin, but to no formal indictment. Swiss
press reports claimed that the Federal Prosecutor had placed too
much stock in information provided by an ex-con. Only days after
the press reports, Justice Minister Blocher and the Swiss Federal
Criminal Court in Bellinzona, which hold joint oversight over the
Federal Prosecutor's office, announced a special investigation of
Roschacher's office. Roschacher announced his resignation before
the end of this special investigation, though he ultimately was
cleared of the allegations of mismanagement and legal wrongdoing.

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The "Blocher-Roschacher Affair"
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4. (U) The Oversight Committee of Parliament's lower house (GPK-N),
which monitors the Swiss government administration on behalf of the
Parliament, has had an ongoing investigation of the circumstances
leading to Roschacher's resignation. The issue had remained largely
out of the public discussion until September 3, when left-leaning
newspapers began reporting information apparently leaked from a
GPK-N report on Roschacher's resignation. According to those press
reports, Blocher allegedly plotted to oust Roschacher, overstepping
his mandate by pressuring Roschacher to resign and by arranging a
severance package for Roschacher to help convince him to quit absent
any legal or administrative basis.


5. (U) The storm broke on September 5 when the Federal Council
announced it planned to engage an independent legal expert in order
to help it assess the findings of the (yet-to-be published) GPK-N
report on Roschacher's resignation. Under mounting pressure of the
media reports, Blocher the same day held a press conference
denouncing the GPK-N report as "tendentious" and the allegation of a
plot as "nonsense."


6. (U) Later on September 5, the GPK-N held a hastily arranged press
conference to publish the findings of its report, which alleges
serious misconduct of Blocher, including bypassing the Federal
Council and disregarding the separation of powers in the
"non-voluntary resignation" of Roschacher. More ominously, the
GPK-N also announced that it was going to examine documents that
might reveal a plot to oust Roschacher, cooked up by Holenweger and
supposedly involving Blocher. The documents reportedly had been
obtained by the German police and provided by the government of
Germany to Swiss legal officials. By September 6, the media from
left to right was pitching the imbroglio as an affair of state
focusing almost exclusively on putative evidence of a plot. The
actual GPK-N report got almost overlooked by the media.

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The SVP Comes Out Swinging
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7. (U) On September 6, Blocher's SVP fought back. SVP strategist
Christoph Moergeli presented the press with what he said were the
original documents that the GPK-N wanted to evaluate for indications
of the alleged plot. Thus far, the GPK-N has only viewed copies
held by a Swiss Examining Magistrate, who did not permit the GPK-N
to make copies of the documents. Moergeli said he had obtained the
documents directly from his "friend" Holenweger. The documents are
a series of military-style flipcharts with names of two dozen Swiss
politicians, journalists, and private persons, annotated with
comments, abbreviations, and markings. Moergeli vehemently
dismissed allegations that the documents in question represented
plans of a secret plot against Roschacher, calling the conspiracy
theory "politically instrumentalized bull -------------- ." He argued that the
cryptic notes of Holenweger, a former Swiss army general staff
officer, were simply Holenweger's effort to record the crisis
unfolding over Roschacher following the publication of the press
reports regarding the "Ramos Affair."


8. (U) In a September 11 statement released via his lawyer,
Holenweger himself reinforced Moergli's claims, arguing that the
documents were simply notes he wrote for his own "personal
orientation," and that none of the persons listed were aware of the
documents or involved in any kind of plot. He further stated that
he had not met with Blocher since 1988, and apologized for the
trouble the documents had caused.

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"UnSwiss" Bickering
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9. (SBU) Though this complex saga appears far from over, it thus far
has generated one of the worst bouts of bickering and public
accusations in modern Swiss politics. The SVP has presented recent
events as proof of its claims that the left was conspiring to oust
Blocher from the Federal Council which comes up for election in
December. Lucrezia Meier-Schatz, the member of the GPK-N who
insinuated a possible plot to oust Roschacher, reportedly has
received anonymous threats and has been put under police protection.
Some members of the (center-)left have decried Blocher's position
on the Federal Council as untenable, though generally denying any
plot to remove him. Federal Councilor and Interior Minister
Couchepin (FDP) said on Swiss radio that recent events reminded him
of fascism in Italy and, referring to his arch-enemy Blocher, that
Switzerland had no need for a "Duce."


10. (SBU) On September 10, Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey, who
thus far had refrained from comment, urged restraint on everybody.
In an interview with Switzerland's largest circulation tabloid,
Calmy-Rey
called the current bickering among the political parties "unSwiss"
and admonished that nobody should be blamed before all the facts are
known and carefully evaluated.

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A Complicated Storyline
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11. (SBU) The circumstances leading to Roschacher's resignation
remain murky and facts are scant. However, it is an open secret
that there was no love lost between Blocher and Roschacher, who
repeatedly had clashed publicly prior to Roschacher's July 2006
resignation. It also is a fact that Blocher had warned Roschacher
in writing of his possible dismissal. Nevertheless, Blocher would
have had no authority to single-handedly sack Roschacher. That is
where the conspiracy theories start, allegedly "corroborated" by the
Holenweger charts, claiming that the press report that prompted
Roschacher's resignation was part of a bigger plot (Comment: The
newspaper in question -- "Weltwoche" -- firmly toes the SVP line.
End comment)


12. (SBU) Those who claim that the affair stems from a personal
vendetta against Blocher note that Roschacher had been nominated as
Federal Prosecutor by Blocher's predecessor as Justice Minister,
Ruth Metzler (CVP),whom Blocher bumped from the Federal Council
following the elections in 2003, ending 44-years of stable party
composition of the Swiss government when the SVP demanded a second
seat in the Cabinet. Roschacher had a long-standing personal
relationship dating back to student days with Metzler and her
husband, so his relations with Blocher likely were strained from the
very beginning. Meier-Schatz, who led the investigation of
Blocher's actions and stirred rumors of a plot, is a member of the
Christian-Democratic party, as is Metzler, and represents a Canton
in eastern Switzerland from which both Roschacher and Metzler hail.

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Comment: Pre-Election Politics?
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13. (SBU) The Blocher-Roschacher affair has roiled the Swiss
political scene whose normal hallmarks are consensus and compromise.
And it comes at a particularly sensitive time, as the Swiss prepare
for their October 21 parliamentary elections. General Swiss
prosperity and challenges related to globalization appear to be
reinforcing the normal pre-election tendency toward "niche" politics
and polarization (more on that will be reported septel).


14. (SBU) Against this backdrop, the vehemence with which the
various parties have asserted wrong-doing by others and/or claimed
for themselves the status of "victim" surely is driven by a desire
to score political points. However, barring some further
sensational development, we should not expect Blocher to resign or
be removed from office. Give the complexity of the storyline and
limited public appetite for political news, the most likely effect
of the affair will be to galvanize already committed supporters in
the Swiss political camps, rather than increase the support for one
party or another.

CARTER