The Swiss Interior Minister, Ms Ruth Dreifuss, was elected Switzerland's first female and first Jewish President by parliament yesterday, less than three decades after Swiss women got the right to vote.
"Today Switzerland proved it is numb without its women," Ms Dreifuss told cheering crowds outside parliament in Berne. "We have taken up the torch of generations before us," the 58-year-old current Vice-President said in her native French. "For dozens and dozens of years we've been fighting for equality between men and women. "Today we have affirmed this equality."
As President - a largely ceremonial post - the Social Democrat will preside over the seven-member cabinet in 1999.
The presidency rotates among the ministers on a yearly basis, with succession determined by seniority. The parliamentary vote is little more than a seal of approval for Switzerland's highest representative by protocol.
Ms Dreifuss, who toasted the crowds braving the cold, champagne in hand, received 158 of 210 votes cast.
The president of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities welcomed Ms Dreifuss's election, but said it was not a vote for or against Jews in general.
"We think it is a good thing that we have a President of Jewish descent in Switzerland," Mr Rolf Bloch told Reuters. "But I do not think that this was a demonstration for or against Jews."
When Ms Dreifuss joined the cabinet in 1993, she became its first member from the country's 17,500-strong Jewish community.
She is only the second female cabinet member in Switzerland, which gave women the right to vote on federal issues in 1971.
A Radical Democrat, Ms Elisabeth Kopp, the first female to join the cabinet in 1984, had been slated to become the first woman president, but resigned in 1989 after being accused of violating the Official Secrets Act.
But Ms Dreifuss said she refused to be a figurehead for a male-dominated government.
"I don't want to be treated - bouquets of flowers and all - as though I were only a piece jewellery for the confederation," she said in Swiss German, switching easily between official Swiss languages.
"I won't be satisfied if I'm the last woman (President) for decades. I'm just opening the door for other women," she told Swiss television, which carried her election live.
The president has no express power to set policy, a privilege reserved for the Federal Council - or cabinet - as a whole. Within the four-party coalition cabinet, the President is considered first among equals.
Ms Dreifuss served as interior minister in a period of profound national soul-searching over its future goals and wartime past.
As Switzerland marked its 150th anniversary as a modern state this year, it grappled with issues such as the future of its neutrality in the face of European integration.
At the same time, it came under attack from critics who painted the country and its secretive banks as cold-hearted profiteers from Naziera suffering. The often bitter dispute at times sparked anti-Jewish sentiment in Switzerland.
Ms Dreifuss welcomed a landmark $1.25 billion settlement in August between Swiss banks and Holocaust victims who alleged banks hoarded their wealth.
The former journalist and trade union secretary holds a degree in economics, is single and speaks German, English, Spanish and some Italian in addition to French.