Electrical switchgear, e.g. a circuit breaker, must in general provide good dielectric strength in open position in order to avoid discharge. To improve the dielectric strength capacitors are often arranged in parallel between the contacts of the switchgear. For very high voltage applications, e.g. >500kV, two circuit breaker are connected in series for switching such high voltages, i.e. the total voltage to be switched needs to be shared equally by the two switches. Because of the required capacitance the capacitor and hence also the switchgear is big, especially of great diameter, and costly. According to the present invention shields (10, 11) are arranged in order to form additional capacitors C1'', C1''' and C2 between the shields (10, 11) and between a connecting means (4), connecting the two switches (2, 3), and the enclosure (5). The resulting switchgear 1 has increased dielectric strength and the total voltage is essentially equally shared by the two switches (2, 3) in series.