Leuthard was a member of the Swiss National Council from 1999 to 2006 for the canton of Aargau. She presided over the Christian Democratic People's Party from 2004 to 2006.[5] Following the resignation of Joseph Deiss from the Swiss Federal Council, Leuthard was elected as his successor on 14 June 2006. She received 133 out of 234 valid votes to become the 109th Federal Councillor. She is the fifth woman elected to the Federal Council. Her election represented a departure from a long precedent of replacing a Member of the Federal Council with someone from the same language group. While Deiss was a French speaker, Leuthard is a German speaker.[6]
She was elected President of the Confederation for 2010 and 2017.[2][7][5][8] She became the third woman to hold the post, after Ruth Dreifuss (1999) and Micheline Calmy-Rey (2007).[9] As President of the Confederation, Leuthard presided over meetings of the Federal Council and carried out representative functions that would normally be handled by a head of state in other democracies (though in Switzerland, the Federal Council as a whole is regarded as the head of state). She was also the highest-ranking official in the Swiss order of precedence and had the power to act on behalf of the whole Federal Council in emergency situations. However, in most cases, Leuthard was merely primus inter pares, with no power above and beyond her six colleagues.
In July 2022, Swiss media reported that Doris Leuthard was the victim of aggression by her husband in their vacation home in Ticino with a knife. Her husband has been detained in a psychiatric prison by the Swiss police because of the chance of recidivism and alcoholism.[4]
^Skard, Torild (2014) "Ruth Dreifuss, Micheline Calmy-Rey and Doris Leuthard" in Women of power - half a century of female presidents and prime ministers worldwide, Bristol: Policy Press ISBN978-1-44731-578-0, pp. 404-7
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