Ruth Dreifuss, 68, became the first woman in history to hold the office of president of the Swiss Confederation when she was elected in 1999. She has had a varied professional career working as a secretary in a hotel, an editor of a weekly paper and a junior lecturer in national accounts until she joined the Socialist party in 1965.

The former president, who was on a three-week visit to Bhutan, spoke with Kuensel’s Sonam Pelden about democracy, happiness, Swiss-Bhutan relations and the role of women in democracy.
1. What brings you to Bhutan?
It was an old dream. For many people, I think, Bhutan has a magical touch in its name and history. I was mainly interested in looking at the Swiss-Bhutanese cooperation and, when I saw that it would be possible for me to travel with Helvetas to visit projects, I decided very quickly to come.

2. You visited some of the Swiss-assisted projects in Bhutan? What are your impressions?
I think the most important work in the relation that I saw is sustainability. This is a very good feeling to see that, over 40 years, things were constructed in common, Bhutanese and Swiss working together, and these realizations are still used. For example, the suspension bridges that I saw all around the country and I saw people and cows walking on it. It was beautiful to see that it was a firm ground on which this cooperation could build realisation.

3. We heard that Swiss assistance to Bhutan would be withdrawn, why?
I think stopped is not the right word. Because, you see, we have four year plans for Swiss technical cooperation and we’re now sure that in the next period there will be continuation. We have things to achieve here like the starting of the functioning of the Zhemgang centre, so you can’t say that there’s now a decision to stop.

One point is that we did a lot together. Switzerland invested a lot in infrastructure and, I think, if I see, Bhutan needs a lot of infrastructure because it’s so divided and so difficult geographically. But I think that now Bhutan is stronger for receiving loans, Bhutan has skilled people to realize infrastructure, so the need for this Swiss cooperation has diminished in the infrastructure sector.

What we think will be more our duty in the future, for Helvetas mainly, is: Bhutan is living historical moments now, building a democracy in an admirable way. Democracy means not only a parliament, not only a constitution, it also means a civil society. And I think we can bring our experience of organizing free associations of farmers, of women, of any kind of free citizens, wanting to join together to bring to the open their problems because a democracy where you don’t have this movement from the grass-roots to the summit is not really a living democracy.

4. What do you think about Bhutan’s democratic process?
I’m really impressed. I would say the third king really built the ground, first movement of democratization because the fourth king was so wise to develop this whole constitutional movement. I was very impressed by his modesty, his wish to be a grant for the rights of the people in this country. So, I think Bhutan is an example of collective wisdom and balance. This is unique and I was very happy to be here in the days after the elections. I heard that nobody believed the people would be so responsible, feel so responsible. So, this is really amazing to think that people, who were at the beginning quite reluctant, quite afraid about this new kind of functioning of society, said, “Okay, now I’m a citizen and now I will vote.” This citizen feeling of the people is the ground of democracy.

5. The fact that you were Switzerland’s first women president, do you think the goal of sexual equality has been reached?
No, it doesn’t mean being reached neither in Switzerland nor in Bhutan and I think very few countries where you can say that the aim has reached are Scandinavian ones.

6. Why?
Because it’s still difficult to balance feminine responsibility and a job. Because it’s still an under representation of women in politics, because you still have some professions and they’re not well paid and there are still more feminine than masculine in these professions. These are some of the reasons and there is a long way to go. But, I also think self confidence of women is lacking, they take often men as a model and not women and it’s a vicious circle because there are not many women in higher positions.

7. How important is the role of women in politics and democracy?
I think it’s very important because you see, politicians at all level, parliament and government, have to know the reality of daily life. Because on what is politics? On bettering daily life. So, if you don’t know the problems of the people day by day, you can’t be a good politician. And women have to bring in this experience. If you don’t, you are just blind with one eye, you don’t see the reality of half of your people of your country. Sure, you can make an effort, read books and so on to try to understand, but it’s far better to have a direct experience.

8. How happy are the Swiss?
It’s difficult to say as happiness, as you know in Bhutan, isn’t very easy to measure and I congratulate Bhutan for the efforts made in the sense of giving a real substantial basis of this concept of happiness. This is very interesting to see and to adopt, perhaps afterwards. Many elements of Bhutanese society are thinking about it.

As for Switzerland, I would say, yes, many polls show that the people are satisfied. Are they really happy is perhaps another question. They are generally satisfied about their economic situation, about the honesty of political life, because we have low level of corruption, people know that, so they can be confident to be well treated. In my opinion, an important step was made not long ago in the security of being cured, of having no economic barriers to the best medical systems, so all these give a good sense of security of being safe, of being in a well functioning country.

Are they happy? (sighs)

One thing that always astonished me, because I have quite a good experience of poor countries as well as rich ones, is that they are still afraid about the fragility of wealth. Because Switzerland was a poor country not so long time ago and because now they are among the richest, they feel threatened in a certain way. They don’t feel really sure that this situation will last forever and I think it’s strange because there is no reason to doubt. There is some kind of concern and some politicians use that in a bad way saying that the foreigners will take your job, saying that European Union will influence Switzerland and get its way. In my view, it might be the only obstacle for happiness.

But I’m really happy because I don’t fear the future and I’m sure that we’ll solve the problems and build a harmonious society.

9. What are your impressions of Bhutan?
It’s so rich that it’s difficult to summarise. The beauty of the country, the difficulty of the geographical situation, the valleys, the mountains, the difficulties of communication, the isolation and so on. But, in a beautiful landscape, and I know that people are sensitive to this beauty. When you see, for instance, and I was really touched, poor houses but with beautiful flowers in pots, all around the house. You see, these people have real difficulty to live, to buy food and they are tired at the end of the day. But they have time to water flowers and have a nice house.

I didn’t see the biggest poverty of Bhutan because I didn’t go to the east or south. I was always on the road and never far from them, but I can imagine that the biggest challenge for the future will be the divide between very poor people and people being in the process of development of making the enterprise and producing for the market.

I was really delighted to see schools in every village, to see pupils, to see health centres all around the places, so I really think that the ground for shared development, shared by all Bhutanese, is laid. Now, we have to see that not only that everybody goes to school but also that everybody finds a job.
Source: Kuenselonline