Adrian Amstutz (born 2 December 1953) is a Swiss politician. He was a member of the

Swiss National Council The National Council (german: Nationalrat; french: Conseil national; it, Consiglio nazionale; rm, Cussegl naziunal) is the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Switzerland, the upper house being the Council of States. With 200 seats, the ...

from the

Canton of Berne The canton of Bern or Berne (german: Kanton Bern; rm, Chantun Berna; french: canton de Berne; it, Canton Berna) is one of the 26 cantons forming the Swiss Confederation. Its capital city, Bern, is also the ''de facto'' capital of Switzerland. ...

from 2003 to 2019.

Life

Amstutz was born and lives in the rural village of

Sigriswil Sigriswil is a municipality in the administrative district of Thun in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. History Sigriswil is first mentioned in 1222-23 as ''Sigriswile''. Archeological remains dating from the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age ...

. As a young man, he served in the elite parachute reconnaissance unit of the Swiss Air Force and won the 1978 Parachuting World Cup in the

parachuting Parachuting, including also skydiving, is a method of transiting from a high point in the atmosphere to the surface of Earth with the aid of gravity, involving the control of speed during the descent using a parachute or parachutes. For ...

/ giant slalom combination discipline. Trained as an architectural draftsman and head mason, he had to abandon plans for an academic education after marrying his girlfriend, and founded his own construction planning company instead.

Career

In 1993, Amstutz entered politics as

mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well a ...

of Sigriswil, joining the conservative

Swiss People's Party The Swiss People's Party (german: Schweizerische Volkspartei, SVP; rm, Partida populara Svizra, PPS), also known as the Democratic Union of the Centre (french: Union démocratique du centre, UDC; it, Unione Democratica di Centro, UDC), is a nati ...

(SVP). In 1998, he was elected to the

Grand Council of Bern The Grand Council (german: Grosser Rat, french: Grand conseil) is the parliament of the Swiss canton of Bern. It consists of 160 members (as of 2006) elected by proportional representation for a four-year term of office. The French-speaking part ...

. He joined the National Council in 2003 and was re-elected in the

2007 elections The following elections occurred in the year 2007. * Electoral calendar 2007 * Elections in 2007 * 2007 United Nations Security Council election Africa * 52nd National Conference of the African National Congress * 2007 Algerian legislative el ...

, garnering more votes than any other candidate in the canton. In 2011, he won a close runoff by-election against the Social Democratic candidate,

Ursula Wyss Ursula Wyss (born 8 February 1973 in Davos) is a Swiss politician and economist. She represented the Canton of Bern in the Swiss National Council as member of the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland (SP) from 6 December 1999 to 3 March 2013 ...

, to succeed

Simonetta Sommaruga Simonetta Myriam Sommaruga (born 14 May 1960) is a Swiss politician who has served as a Member of the Swiss Federal Council since 2010. A member of the Social Democratic Party (SP/PS), she was President of the Swiss Confederation in 2015 and 202 ...

in the upper chamber, the Council of States. He failed to defend this seat in the

general election A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...

later that year, but was elected again to the National Council. Unlike most of his colleagues from the Bernese branch of the SVP prior to the spin-off of the Conservative Democratic Party, Amstutz's politics match the far-right course of the national party, which in 2007 caused him to be considered as a potential candidate for the

Swiss Federal Council The Federal Council (german: Bundesrat; french: Conseil fédéral; it, Consiglio federale; rm, Cussegl federal) is the executive body of the federal government of the Swiss Confederation and serves as the collective head of state and governme ...

References

External links

*
Personal website
1953 births Living people Members of the Council of States (Switzerland) Swiss People's Party politicians {{Switzerland-politician-stub