The Left Party’s Elif Eralp wins Berlin vote on anti-AfD, pro-poor campaign

Eralp, 45, and her pro-poor party have promised dramatic steps to solve Berlin’s housing crisis and bring down rents, including with a controversial pledge to expropriate flats held by large corporate landlords.

The daughter of Turkish migrants, Eralp has also campaigned as being the best person to counter the rise of the far-right and anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

“I believe it would indeed send a powerful signal if someone with a migration background were to become governing mayor of Berlin,” she said on the eve of the vote.

Celebrating on Sunday, she exclaimed: “In our city, love and justice have triumphed over hatred.”

Eralp – whose party wants to reduce social inequality and the power of big business – has been compared to Zohran Mamdani, the charismatic left-wing outsider who became mayor of New York.

“Naturally, the success of a democratic socialist in New York – the heartland of capitalism – is a major success,” Eralp said on Friday, calling Mamdani “a great role model”.

The election win by the Die Linke, at about 25 percent according to exit polls, was a historic first for Berlin and dealt a blow to the centre-right CDU of embattled Chancellor Friedrich Merz, which came second with about 20 percent.

In order to govern, however, Eralp must now convince other parties – likely the centre-left SPD and the Greens – to join her in a so-called “red-red-green coalition”.

Mideast conflict

However, the SPD’s lead candidate Steffen Krach has already made clear he opposes the expropriation idea by Die Linke.

Germany’s mainstream parties have many other differences with the left wing party, especially on security policy where it opposes military aid for Ukraine and advocates for Germany to leave NATO.

READ ALSO: What political parties in Berlin say about immigration and German citizenship

Die Linke has also been criticised for anti-Israeli messages from some district-level figures – an especially sensitive issue in Germany, given its dark history of Nazi rule and the Holocaust.

Eralp had repeatedly emphasised her desire to support and foster Jewish life in Berlin.

But fierce criticism of Israel from some local branches of Die Linke, particularly in Berlin’s Neukoelln neighbourhood that is home to many Arab and Muslim immigrants, have drawn negative headlines.

A concert in August at a local Die Linke campaign event in Neukölln provoked scandal after a performer advocated an “intifada” (uprising) and chanted “Death to the IDF!”, the Israel Defense Forces.

Eralp distanced herself from the incident, but it drew fierce criticism from the Greens and the SPD – and once again prompted the press to question whether Die Linke is fit for governing.

Path to power

Still, the Greens during the campaign appeared to prefer backing a coalition with Die Linke over the other obvious possibility of joining with the conservative CDU.

But in the SPD, which has a history of close ties to organised labour and working-class voters, there are some dissenting voices.

The SPD chose to break with a left-wing coalition after the previous election in 2023 and are currently junior partners with the CDU.

Eralp now has a few days or weeks to convince her potential partners that she has her state branch under control and is suited to govern.

Erlap’s parents, who were active in socialist politics and trade unions in Turkey, fled to Germany in 1980 following a military coup when the mother was eight months pregnant.

Eralp was born in Munich and went on to study law in Hamburg, going on to defend migrants’ rights. She was hired as a staffer for Die Linke’s faction in the German parliament in 2010, and moved to Berlin permanently not long after.

She lives in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district with her husband and two children – and is often quick to emphasise that, like most Berliners, they rent their flat and are not homeowners.