UlrichUeli Maurer (born 1 December 1950 in Wetzikon) is a member of the Swiss Federal Council and head of the Swiss Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sports (the Swiss defence minister). As a leading figure in the national-conservative Swiss People's Party, he was elected by the Swiss Federal Assembly to succeed Federal Councillor Samuel Schmid in the Swiss Federal Council election of 10 December 2008 and took office on 1 January 2009.

Maurer grew up as the son of a poor farmer in the Zürcher Oberland. After a commercial apprenticeship, Maurer received a federal accountant's diploma. He was director of the Zürich Farmers' Association from 1994 to 2008, and was president of the Swiss Vegetable Farmers' Association and the Farmers' Machinery Association (Maschinenring) until his election to the Federal Council.

Currently resident in Hinwil in the canton of Zürich, Maurer is married and has six children. He has served in the Swiss Army with the rank of major, commanding a bicycle infantry battalion.

Christoph Blocher (born 11 October 1940, Schaffhausen, Switzerland) is a Swiss politician, industrialist, and former member of the Swiss Federal Council heading the Federal Department of Justice and Police (2004–2007). He serves as Vice President of the Swiss People's Party. As an industrialist, he made a fortune in the chemical industry with the EMS-Chemie corporation.

He is married to the former Silvia Kaiser; they have three daughters and a son.

Blocher earned a certificate at the Wülflingen school of agriculture, then studied law at the University of Zürich, in Montpellier and in Paris. He has a DEA degree in law, and in 1971, he was awarded a doctorate in jurisprudence.

Blocher built his political career through campaigning for smaller government, for a free-market economy, against Switzerland's membership in the European Union and for more tightly controlled immigration. He represented the canton of Zürich in the Swiss National Council from 1980 until his election to the federal council in 2003 as a deputy of the Swiss People's Party (Schweizerische Volkspartei/Union démocratique du centre; SVP/UDC). In addition to the Zürich chapter of the Swiss People's Party, he led a mass organisation, the Action for an Independent and Neutral Switzerland (Aktion für eine unabhängige und neutrale Schweiz). He has frequently been compared by the media and his political opponents to figures such as Jean-Marie Le Pen and Jörg Haider.