The candidate of the Die Linke party, a lawyer shaped by her experiences as the child of political immigrants from Turkey, is expected to lead Berlin’s coalition government. Some suggested that Germany was experiencing a “Zohran Mamdani moment,” referring to the Democratic-Socialist mayor of New York.
Elif Eralp launched her election campaign last fall with the blunt statement: “People like me are not supposed to be mayors in this country.” So the fact that the 45-year-old lawyer, the daughter of political immigrants from Turkey, is on the verge of becoming Berlin’s next mayor and the capital’s first female leader of Turkish origin is a significant moment in German politics. After last weekend’s election, in which her radical left-wing party, Die Linke, came out on top with more than a quarter of the vote, Eralp has become a household name. The atmosphere at Die Linke’s celebrations on Sunday evening was electrifying.
Eralp, whose candidacy has helped pull the party out of a difficult period and bring it to the brink of leading a coalition government in Berlin for the first time, was welcomed like a star. Some commentators suggested that Germany was experiencing a “Zohran Mamdani moment,” referring to the Democratic-Socialist mayor of New York. One of his advisers was sent to Berlin to help Eralp in the weeks before the election. Her campaign was modeled after that of veteran U.S. senator Bernie Sanders. “In our city, love and justice won over hate… This is a signal being sent to the world,” Eralp said at the victory celebration. The reference to “hate” was a direct jab at the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which was celebrating its first win in another pair of Regional elections.
In liberal Berlin, the populist party also made significant gains. However, it was Die Linke that came out on top. With around 26% of the vote, the party not only surpassed the center-left Social Democrats, whose presence has dominated Berlin politics for decades, and the Greens, but also came out significantly ahead of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the conservative party of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who previously held the mayor’s post. Now a lot is at stake for Eralp, who has promised to be “the mayor of all Berliners.”
AMBITIOUS PROMISE
Eralp, who was elected especially by young people, 47% of whom voted for her, and who mobilized thousands of people who usually do not vote, thanks in part to an intensive door-to-door and social media campaign, attracted more attention with her ambitious promise to confront corporate giants on the issue of unaffordable housing in the German capital. Berlin, once described as “poor but sexy” by a former mayor because of its low cost of living, has seen rents skyrocket in recent years. In her nomination speech, the lawyer said that “I am running so that our city becomes affordable again, so that real estate speculators do not decide what happens to our city, but that we decide it together.”
She called the extremely high rents a defining social issue, saying: “This city belongs to all of us, not speculators.”
Merzi has led the opposition to Eralp’s plans to expropriate more than 200,000 apartments in Berlin from their corporate owners, saying her policy, described by some as “socialism in a hurry,” would have “catastrophic consequences” for the economy. The chancellor has said she will push for laws to prevent her plans. But Eralp has vowed to press ahead. However, it is not certain that Die Linke will take control of Berlin’s Rotes Rathaus, or Red City Hall, so named for its red bricks rather than its association with left-wing politics. Eralp’s victory has been overshadowed by accusations that Die Linke has failed to tackle anti-Semitism within its ranks, as well as accusations that the party has tolerated, and at worst, sought the support of, criminal gangs.
The Social Democrats and the Greens, potential coalition partners, have said they need urgent clarification about the alleged links before agreeing to cooperate with Die Linke. Die Linke leaders have consistently denied the allegations, while vowing to take action against any form of anti-Semitism within the party. On Tuesday, the party announced that one of its Berlin deputies, who is suspected of having links to both criminal gangs and a terrorist-linked, pro-Hamas organization, will “suspend parliamentary duties until further notice.”
On Monday, Eralp tried to calm critics. “Any form of glorification or minimization of violence or terror is completely unacceptable,” she said. “I stand by that, and for me, the promise of protection applies unequivocally to Jews, as well as to Muslims, Christians and all people in our city.”
HISTORY OF ERALP
Eralp has insisted on emphasizing the normality of her life. She lives with her husband and two children in a rented apartment in her constituency, Kreuzberg, in south-central Berlin, one of the city’s most diverse neighborhoods and home to one of Germany’s largest and most active Turkish communities. Her children attend a state school in her “kiez,” or neighborhood, and she says she has kept the family away from cameras “for their safety.” Much of her campaigning in the area was conducted in Turkish.
Unlike most Turkish immigrants, Eralp’s parents did not come to Germany as “Gastarbeiter,” or foreign workers, from Eastern Anatolia. They were trade unionists and socialists from Istanbul who were imprisoned after a military coup for their political beliefs. Her mother, Hülya, a well-known feminist in Turkey, was only allowed out of prison because she was in her final months pregnant with Eralp. She and Eralp’s father, Selçuk, a doctor, fled to Germany, where their daughter was born in Munich in 1981. The family went through a complicated asylum process, which, Eralp says, helped shape her worldview.
“I have experienced a lot of things related to what it means when authorities make decisions that you don’t understand. I have also experienced racism and discrimination directly, so my life story has a lot to do with where I have ended up now,” she said. She recalls how her parents often hosted asylum seekers in their home for many years, as well as the 15 years of hardship that her mother, who worked as a nurse trainer, went through before her qualifications were recognized in Germany. At the age of 10, Eralp founded an environmental protection club with her friends in her parents’ garage, and later became involved in the anti-nuclear energy movement. After studying law at the University of Hamburg, she moved to Berlin for two years of compulsory legal practical training, ending up working in the parliamentary group of ‘Die Linke’ and later moving to the Berlin state parliament.
She has said she was inspired to join Die Linke in 2017 as a direct reaction to the entry of the AfD, an anti-immigration party, into the Bundestag for the first time. In 2019, together with Die Linke members and supporters with refugee and immigrant backgrounds, she co-founded Links*kanax, an alliance aimed at increasing the visibility of progressive immigrant voices within the party and beyond.
When she was 12, Eralp says she wanted to become a human rights lawyer “to fight against all these injustices I had seen.” Now, she says, “I’m doing what I set out to do, not in a courtroom, but in the political sphere.” (The Guardian)