Women take a historic majority in Switzerland's governing Cabinet

Swiss women have for the first time captured most of the seats in the country's seven-member executive branch, brushing aside Switzerland's history as one of Europe's last nations to grant women full suffrage.

The shift in the balance of power came yesterday as the parliament in Bern voted Social Democrat MP Simonetta Sommaruga into the Cabinet.

"We've reached the goal after a century-long struggle," said Ruth Dreifuss, a former Swiss Cabinet member who in 1999 served as the country's first female president.

Unlike most countries headed by presidents or prime ministers, Switzerland is largely governed by seven politicians from different parties who comprise the Federal Council. Switzerland's popularly elected parliament took four rounds of voting to elect Sommaruga to fill the position vacated by Transport Minister Moritz Leuenberger. Free Democrat MP Johann Schneider-Ammann also won a seat in a special election called after Leuenberger and Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz announced their retirements.

The Cabinet already had three women and two men representing five parties.

Swiss women didn't get the right to vote or run in national polls until 1971 and the first Swiss woman wasn't elected to the Cabinet until 1984.