Who is the neosindaca of Merano Katharina Zeller and because he has not worn the tricolor band

He is 39 years old and is German native speaker. His name for a few hours has risen to the honors of the chronicles. Katharina Zeller It is the first mayor of Merano to be elected directly by citizens. With another electoral system to elect the mayor was the city council and had already had a mayor, Claudia Chistè. Katharina Zeller was an ally of her predecessor Dario by the doctor, who was with her protagonist of the handover that became viral.

What happened

The new mayor immediately took off the tricolor band, on the contrary he did not really want to wear it by removing it immediately. It is part of the South Tyrolean autonomist party Südtiroler Volkspartei who has among its main objectives the defense of the interests of the German and Ladin groups. He said that wearing the band is a gesture foreign to the practices and local culture for the settlement ceremony, he reiterated instead that he will wear it on all the occasions when he will have to do it as mayor of an Italian municipality.

He said, “Are you sure I really have to?” When his predecessor spent the band. She took it off and took the symbol of the city. He added: “In South Tyrol, by custom, the official badge provided for the mayors is the medallion with the city coat of arms”.

He said he considered the insistence of from the doctor a “provocative” gesture and an “institutional scarbo”. For Marco Galateo, provincial president of Fratelli d’Italia, it is “a clear and unequivocal manifestation of contempt for the institutions of the Italian Republic and, in particular, towards the Italian language community which as mayor is called to serve and represent”.

Süd-Tiroler Freiheit says there is freedom of choice in the use of state symbols. “There can be no obligation to wear the tricolorneither during institutional ceremonies, neither in civil marriages, nor in public buildings, nor in sport. Whoever wishes to do it must be able to do it. But nobody can be forced, “says a press release from the Merano group.

His answer

«My reaction in removing the tricolor band immediately after it had been placed on my shoulders must in no way be interpreted as a gesture of contempt for the symbols of the Republic or towards the tricolor itself. I will wear the band with the utmost respect in all the circumstances provided for by the institutional protocol, as always made by my German -speaking predecessors ».

The family

Both parents are politicians known at local and national level. Karl Zeller, his father, was Senator of the Südtiroler Volkspartei. The mother is Julia Unterberger who is senator in office for the same party. The maternal grandfather was a representative of the South Tyrolean collection party. However, his ideas are personal, not always linked to family tradition. The Corriere della Sera He reports the words of his father: «We are not always of the same opinion and she has made its way without undergoing conditioning on our part. Indeed, perhaps we were bulky figures in his political ascent because too many have reported his success to the fact that they are “daughter” ». He had a daughter just over a year ago with his partner. He loves the dance and is a swing teacher, an activity he has practiced all over the world

Politics

He has been doing politics for 5 years, has become the secretary of the Merano section and then deputy mayor in 2021. The themes of his political campaign are sustainability, care of the territory, homogeneous urban development and climate protection. These issues have approached it to the center -left even if in recent years Svp is linked to the center -right in the province of Bolzano which has the 69.4 of the German -speaking population, the 26th of Italian and the 4 Ladin.