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After the Geneva cantonal government temporarily removed Pierre Maudet from his department, the non-party Council of State announced his resignation on Thursday. For the moment, however, it remains. And he wants to run for his own successor.
Pierre Maudet leaves the government of Geneva and wants to face the people again.
The decision to withdraw his mandate is a matter for the electorate alone, Pierre Maudet told the media on Thursday. At the beginning of next week he will present his resignation as Councilor of State. Assume replacement elections can take place next March. The non-party Maudet declared that he would remain in office until a successor had been sworn in. He himself will run as an independent in the replacement elections.
So far, Maudet has taken the position that he will only resign after a conviction. There is no prosecution procedure in the canton of Geneva. Several members of the cantonal parliament are of the opinion that Maudet should have resigned earlier. It should have done it two years ago, Serge Hiltpold (fdp.) Told the Keystone-SDA news agency on Thursday before the start of the parliamentary session. The FDP wants to present a candidate for the replacement elections.
Deficiencies in personnel management
Maudet’s announcement is a reaction to the Geneva cantonal government’s decision on Wednesday to provisionally withdraw the economic development department from him. The reason was the alarming interim report by an external expert, whom Maudet accused of serious deficiencies in the management and personnel management. So far, the external expert has listened to a large part of the staff. Maudet has been shown to be being questioned by his employees, the report says. The physical and mental health of some employees is no longer guaranteed. Steps must be taken to protect the health of employees immediately. Maudet’s co-workers apparently accused him of tyrannical and humiliating behavior. One of his employees told the “Tribune de Genève” newspaper that he wanted to kill himself.
The cantonal personnel office had commissioned the investigation because there were numerous sick leave in Maudet’s economic development department. Until the final report of the experience in the next two or three weeks, the department with a total of 35 employees was provisionally transferred to the CFO Nathalie Fontanet (fdp.)
“Political execution”
Maudet described the withdrawal of his department by his government colleagues as a pretext for political execution. “I interrupt and they push me aside,” he said. This episode fits into the context of a series of humiliations he has suffered over the past two years. He also complained that he had not been heard by the outside expert.
Initially, Maudet wants to continue attending the meetings of the Council of State. He had one of seven votes, he told RTS radio in Western Switzerland. As for the allegations his employees had made to the independent expert, Maudet said he was demanding a lot. He admitted that his employees have been under pressure lately, especially because of the Corona crisis. I wanted the work to be so intense. He called for agility and pulled high-ranking officials out of his comfort zone.
Criminal proceedings for travel to Abu Dhabi
The criminal process against Maudet takes two years. In early summer, the prosecutor announced his intention to bring Maudet to justice. It concerns the suspicion of accepting an advantage in connection with a luxury trip to Abu Dhabi in 2015. Instead, the Geneva prosecutor’s office had partially withdrawn the complaints about donations from the Manotel hotel group, which flowed through a support association and destined to the last electoral campaign of Maudet and to finance a birthday party. were.
Maudet was expelled from the party by the FDP Geneva board in July due to criminal proceedings. His government colleagues had toppled him in the course of the affair. In the fall of 2018, the then security director had to hand over the regional council, among other things. Since January 2019, Maudet has only been allowed to run a mini department. The Swiss FDP had already called for Maudet’s resignation from the Geneva government in 2018 because his behavior was not compatible with the party’s values and he had not acted as a role model.
