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Bernhard Hess (born 5 April 1966) is a Swiss politician from the canton of Bern. He was the president of the Swiss Democrats from 2005 to 2012 [1] and was a member of the National Council from 5 December 1999 to 1 December 2007. [2]
Hess was born in Solothurn, and grew up in Langnau im Emmental, the son of Karl and Margot Hess. His father was a secondary school teacher of Latin and Greek and an activist of the Nationale Aktion (later the Swiss Democrats). His mother was the daughter of Swiss expatriates in Germany, and she lived Königsberg until the end of World War II. Hess completed a management apprenticeship, and then started a career as a loan officer at a bank.
In 1988, Hess joined the Nationale Aktion (what would later be called the Swiss Democrats). Between 1994 and 1998, he served on the city council of Bern. In 1998 he was elected to the Grand Council of Bern, the cantonal parliament. In the Federal Assembly elections in 1999, Hess was elected as the only Swiss Democrat in the National Council. In the 2007 election he lost this seat.
Since 1992, Hess has worked full-time for the Swiss Democrats. From 1993 to 1995, he was secretary of the Swiss Democrats/Ticino League group in the Federal Assembly, and from 1995 to 1999 he was secretary for the Swiss Democrats group. From 2003 to 2005 he was general secretary of the party. Hess is a member of the Campaign for an Independent and Neutral Switzerland, Pro Libertate, and the Sprachkreises Deutsch. During his time in the leadership of the Swiss Democrats, he discussed forming an alliance of right-wing parties in Switzerland, including the Ticino League and Geneva Citizens' Movement.
Flavio Cotti was a Swiss politician who served as member of the Federal Council from 1986 to 1999. He was a member of the Christian Democratic People's Party from the canton of Ticino. In the 1990s, Cotti led the Swiss government's unsuccessful attempts to further Switzerland's political integration into the European Union. He was President of the Confederation in 1991 and 1998 and headed the departments of Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs.
Nello Celio was a Swiss politician from the Canton of Ticino. He was a member of the Free Democratic Party. He was a member of the Federal Council from 1966 to 1973 and served as the President of the Swiss Confederation in 1972.
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Felix Louis Calonder was a Swiss politician, member of the Swiss Federal Council from 1913 to 1920, and President of the Confederation in 1918. He was affiliated to the Free Democratic Party. During his tenure of office, he held the Department of Home Affairs from 1913 to 1917, and the Political Department from 1918 to 1919. As of 2022, Felix Calonder has been the Federal Council's only native Romansh speaker.
The Ticino League is a regionalist, national-conservative political party in Switzerland active in the canton of Ticino.
The Swiss Democrats is a nationalist political party in Switzerland. It was called the National Action against the Alienation of the People and the Home until 1977 and the National Action for People and Home until 1990, when it was renamed to its current name.
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Ignazio Daniele Giovanni Cassis is a Swiss physician and politician who has been a Member of the Swiss Federal Council since 1 November 2017. A member of FDP.The Liberals, Cassis was elected to the Federal Council on 20 September 2017 following the resignation of Didier Burkhalter. He has headed the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs since he took office. On 8 December 2021, Cassis was elected President of the Swiss Confederation for 2022.
Federal elections were held in Switzerland on 20 October 2019 to elect all members of both houses of the Federal Assembly. This was followed by the 2019 election to the Swiss Federal Council, the federal executive, by the United Federal Assembly.
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Élisabeth Baume-Schneider is a Swiss politician of the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland (SP) and a current member of the Federal Council. She was elected on 7 December 2022, the first elected member from the Canton of Jura.
Erich Johann Hess is a Swiss businessman, truck driver and politician. Hess serves as a member of the National Council (Switzerland) for the Swiss People's Party since 2015. He served as councillor in the city council of Bern between 2005 and 2010 and is currently serving a second term. He is also a former member of the Grand Council of Bern between 2010 and 2016 and between 2018 and 2020, where he was a member on the audit and justice committees.