Eralp “Breaks Open Ballot Boxes”

Turkish Media Celebrate Left Party Victory in Berlin

Elif Eralp’s election victory in Berlin was also met with great joy in Turkey.(Bild: EPA/CHRISTOPH RUTENKOLK)

Elif Eralp is making headlines in Turkey as well—and not just because, as the Left Party’s top candidate in the Berlin House of Representatives election, she achieved a major victory and could become the next mayor of the German capital. The politician’s Turkish roots are also being highlighted in her parents’ homeland.

As reported, the Left Party emerged as the clear winner of the Berlin election with 25.7 percent of the vote. According to the state election commission, after all votes were counted, the CDU—which has held the mayor’s office until now under Kai Wegner—came in second with 18.8 percent of the vote, led by its top candidate, Stefan Evers. They were followed by the AfD (16.3 percent), the Greens (14.3 percent), and the SPD (12.1 percent). Sahra Wagenknecht’s Alliance (BSW, 4.7 percent) failed to win seats in the House of Representatives on Sunday, as did the FDP (2.5 percent), which had already failed to clear the five-percent threshold in 2023.

The Left’s election party with political messages(Bild: AFP/JENS SCHLUETER)

“Turkish Candidate Sweeps the Polls”
“Historic result in Germany: In Berlin, victory goes to the party of mayoral candidate Elif Eralp, who is of Turkish descent,” headlined the television station Halk TV. And the daily newspaper Sözcü wrote: “Turkish candidate sweeps the polls; the Germans said ‘Elif’!”

This victory celebration by the Left Party is sparking discussions online: 

The Turkish media platform Serbestiyet wrote that evening: “The daughter of a family that fled after the September 12 coup is on the verge of taking office in Berlin.”

The party of Berlin’s incumbent mayor, Kai Wegner, has been ousted by the Left Party.(Bild: AFP/JOHN MACDOUGALL)

Eralp: “We’ve made history”
Eralp herself had said in Turkish in her speech immediately after the first projections that evening: “We’ve made history, friends.” At the Left Party’s election party, the winner immediately staked her claim to government: “I want to become Governing Mayor of Berlin so that the people in our city can once again have a better life. Above all, the people who help keep our city running every day.” Eralp would not only be Berlin’s first Left Party head of government but also the first with an immigrant background.

The 45-year-old’s parents, socialists and union activists, fled Turkey after the military coup; her mother was pregnant with her at the time. Eralp was then born in Munich in 1981.

Nach Wahlsieg der Linken

Stolpersteine auf dem Weg zu Rot-Grün-Rot

To take office in the Red City Hall, Elif Eralp must now forge a coalition with the Greens and the SPD. A Red-Red-Green coalition—led by the SPD—has already existed in Berlin; will there now be a Red-Green-Red coalition? That’s not certain—because there are a few stumbling blocks.

• Expropriations: On election night, representatives of The Left made it unmistakably clear that, even in potential exploratory talks, they do not intend to back down from the socialization of large housing corporations. “The vote of Berliners also applies to my platform and to me personally; in that regard, I insist that we nationalize—in addition to the many other things we must do to finally tackle the rent crisis in our city,” said Eralp.
• Anti-Semitism Debate: Discussions about anti-Semitism within The Left occur with some regularity—partly because the party repeatedly provides reasons for such discussions. Take late August, for example, when a controversial rapper allegedly sang a song at a party event opposing Israel’s war in Gaza, featuring lines such as “Yalla Yalla Intifada West Bank, Palestine, Gaza” and “Death to the IDF” (Death to the Israeli Defense Forces). On election night itself, while many party members were celebrating the results, the Left caused another incident that will be difficult to distance itself from. And once again, the Neukölln district chapter is in the spotlight: a leading member of a Berlin gang showed up at an election party there. “The fact that Issa Remmo showed up at the Berlin Left Party’s election party sends a disturbing signal,” writes outgoing Governing Mayor Kai Wegner on X.
• Calls for Monitoring by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution: 

  Largely due to the debates on anti-Semitism, the CDU has repeatedly called for the party to be monitored by Berlin’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The party’s state executive committee even passed a resolution on this matter during a closed-door meeting.

• SPD’s Willingness Is Questionable: The challenges on the path to a Red-Green-Red coalition do not stem solely from The Left. SPD lead candidate Steffen Krach ran to become “the next governing mayor,” but ultimately finished in fifth place; the party lost about six percentage points compared to the 2023 election. Are the Social Democrats—who have been part of the Senate continuously since 1989—capable of and willing to govern again? On Sunday evening, Krach described the result as catastrophic, a turning point for the Berlin SPD.