Elected officials at the beginning of March, the new Valais state councilors Franziska Biner and Stéphane Ganzer officially came into office on Thursday. Back on a morning like no other.
“This morning, when I open my eyes, I said to myself: that’s it, it’s my turn,” Stéphane Ganzer told Keystone-Ats. “Embedding this function is a pride and a feeling of responsibility that lives in me to make Valais shine,” he adds.
“When I woke up, I told myself that I lacked the Matterhorn,” said Franziska Biner. The Haut-Valaisanne has chosen to move to Sion to avoid 2-hour trips (simple race) to Zermatt, of which it was so far vice-president. “I’m looking for an apartment. For the moment, I’m at the hotel,” she said. “I left my village and my house. These are the main changes for me.”
The memory of Joe Dassin
“I don’t want the function to change me. I want to stay in tune with my values,” admits Stéphane Ganzer. Franziska Biner prefers to turn into a philosopher: “In life, we learn and we grow with the task that falls to us. Rome was not built in one day.”
If the new state councilors have not yet fully fitted out their office, Stéphane Ganzer has chosen to keep a painting by the painter Jean-Charles Knupfer, property of the cantonal museums, immortalizing part of the village of Veyras (Muzot in this case), under the snow. The Liberal-Radical, on the other hand, already installed a table immortalizing a queen fight, brought his helmet of an instructor captain among firefighters and a 45 laps of Joe Dassin: “It was the first concert that I experienced, in 1975, when I was still in my mother’s belly.”
Real self -mockery capacity
“When entering my office, I still had a little trouble assimilating that it was no longer that of Roberto Schmidt (Editor’s note: his predecessor)”, continues Franziska Biner. “In executives, I planned to install a caricature of me published in the Walliser Bote, a collection of funny sentences that I said and a message received by my former colleagues (Editor’s note: from the architectural office in which she collaborated).”
The new elected officials participated in the constitutive session of the Council of State at 9:00 am before the complete cantonal executive shared a joint meal organized by Mathias Reynard, the new president of the government.
-Baptism of fire
The absence of a second round during the elections and a distribution of dicasteries on March 12 allowed the Ganzer-Biner duo to read the strategic files of their department and meet their staff well before the start of their mandate. Power passations between Frédéric Favre and Stéphane Ganzer on the one hand, and between Roberto Schmidt and Franziska Biner on the other, was able to be done calmly.
The two elected officials will be entitled to their baptism of political fire next week, with the May session of the Grand Council. The former president of Noble-Contrée will defend the video surveillance bill in the cantonal public places. The ex-president of Zermatt will speak, she, computer strategy in front of the plenum.
On the political side, the two elected officials set their priorities. In charge of sport, Stéphane Ganzer will quickly work on the future of the Tourbillon stadium in Sion. “In terms of security, I would like to refine communication during major problems,” said the PLR.
Reflection around participation
In terms of institution, Stéphane Ganzer pleads for a redefinition of the role of prefects and a reflection around the future of districts. He also wishes to bring remedies to the constant decrease in the participation rate in the elections by digging tracks such as electronic voting, citizenship in school and a lowering of the quorum.
Now at the head of the finance and energy department, Franziska Biner will aim to balance the accounts “despite the difficulties that await us.” And to add that “concerning the creation of new positions in the State of Valais, they will have to meet a need, otherwise I will not be favorable.”
“At the level of the energy department, we will have to work on the development of hydroelectrics by collaborating with the municipalities, so that it brings money in the canton,” she said.
This article was published automatically. Source: ATS
