Claude Longchamp

How many Sundays have we spent in front of the TV listening to the analysis of this dapper gentleman who always wears a bow-tie in front of the camera. We like his blend of meticulous elegance, which his bow-tie suggests, and his unique charm. When Claude Longchamps dissects the latest voting results on Swiss television, we always see him as this rather well-nourished man with the air of a bartender, commenting on the projections eloquently, pertinently and expertly. What a fascinating character!

Claude Longchamps has been a firm fixture on Swiss TV for many years when it comes to elections and referenda. A voting Sunday without the university lecturer and pollster from Fribourg is impossible to imagine. But things are now set to change as the 59-year-old political scientist and historian has decided to scale down his working commitments. He was omnipresent as chief executive of his GfS Research Institute in Berne, but Longchamps now wants to hand over the company. He will remain chairman of the Board of Directors until 2019, but he passed operational management on to Executive Board members Urs Bieri and Lukas Golder on 1 May.

For us, this means we will have to get used to voting Sundays without the man in the bow-tie in future. Longchamps is planning to take a break from the Swiss political scene next year to go on an extended trip around the world, as he revealed to the magazine “Bilanz”.