Marianne Kleiner

Marianne Kleiner (; born 29 May 1947) is a Swiss politician who served as a Member of the National Council from 2003 to 2011 and was President of the Radical Democratic Party from 2004 to 2005.

Early life Marianne Kleiner was born Marianne Schläpfer on in Gossau, in the canton of St. Gallen. She is originally from Rorschacherberg, in the same canton.

In 1966, she married Peter Kleiner, the sole editor of the Appenzeller Tagblatt, then director of the Zollikofer printing house. They have two children. She completed this with training in person-centered psychotherapy in Zurich (certificate in 1984). alongside Alice Scherrer-Baumann, five years after the introduction of women's suffrage. From 1994 to 2003, she headed the finance department. The first woman to be responsible for finance in a Swiss canton, she played an important role alongside the future federal councillor Hans-Rudolf Merz in the takeover of the bankrupt cantonal bank by UBS and also implemented cost-cutting and tax-reduction measures. In 2003, she was elected to the National Council, where she sat until 2011. At the same time, she was Vice-President of the Swiss Radical Democratic Party from 1998 to 2006. She was also President ad interim from 2004 to 2005. From 2014 to 2016, she chaired the Appenzell association for assistance to people with mental health problems, of which she then became vice-president.