Switzerland is regarded as a democratic model of political equality and pronounced participation rights of the electorate. Originally led for decades by a collegial single-party government, it gradually evolved into a relatively stable concordant multi-party government over time. Maximilian Koch examines who actually leads Switzerland. The question of political elites and institutions plays a crucial role here, as the concept of political leadership is essentially the antithesis to the federal egalitarian distribution of power. It becomes evident that direct democratic instruments, especially the referendum, have turned into actual coercive tools for rotating opposition groups due to excessively low quorums.