In the past few days, the members of the Berlin Left Party have experienced a rollercoaster of emotions: On the one hand, they were happy about a record result of 25.7 percent in the House of Representatives election on Sunday. On the other hand, the visit of a supporter of a terrorist organization to the Neukölln Left and the clan contacts of Bundestag member Ferat Kocak dampened the euphoria. When the state party conference of the Left voted with a large majority in favor of exploratory talks with the Greens and SPD on Friday evening, many delegates seemed relieved. At least on this evening, the Left Party managed not to put obstacles in its own way.
Top candidate Elif Eralp had previously made it clear to the 167 delegates how important it was to her to enter the Red City Hall. She said that single parents, for example, longed for left-wing politics. Eralp reiterated its goal of socializing large housing groups. This is necessary because of the “daily cold expropriation” of tenants through rent increases. The German-Turkish woman emphasized the importance of the election result for migrants: “Not only poor Berlin, but also migrant Berlin” had “risen up”. She included several sentences in Turkish in her speech.
Eralp doesn’t want any calls for violence “from our stages”
Eralp rejected allegations of anti-Semitism against the Left Party. The allegations are “not a nuanced criticism” but have “reached a destructive dimension”. She wants to “strengthen Jewish life and fight anti-Semitism.” But she also said that “calls for violence should never come from our stages.”
Eralp was referring to the appearance of the rapper Dahablex at the Neukölln Left Party before the election. There he sang the song “Stop the Genocide” – with the slogan “Yalla Yalla Intifada – West Bank, Palestine, Gaza” and death wishes for the Israeli army. Eralp immediately distanced himself from it. The top candidate's speech was repeatedly interrupted by long applause. It became clear early on that the state party conference would not spoil her evening.
A proposal from ten left-wing MPs jeopardized Eralp's plans
Hours earlier, the negotiators from the various party currents had set the course for this: ten of the 47 left-wing members in the new House of Representatives had signed a motion that was uncomfortable for Eralp. He envisaged having the exploratory commission elected by the party congress. In this way, “the breadth of the party in the exploratory team” should be reflected.
Such a decision would have been an affront to the state executive board: it had already commissioned the state and parliamentary group leaders on Monday to hold the first talks with the Greens and the SPD. In the early stages of negotiations, the party leadership wants to keep internal opponents of government participation out of the talks. Eralp should be able to build trust in the Greens and Social Democrats undisturbed.
The state executive committee ultimately got the ten representatives to support this plan. In order to accommodate them, a paper was formulated that provides the exploratory commission with “important pillars for the restructuring of the city”: the socialization of large housing groups is “obligatory” to be agreed upon with the Greens and the SPD. SPD leading candidate Steffen Krach rejects such expropriations.
The left wants to increase trade tax and property transfer tax. The paper also states that the “breadth of the party” must then be reflected in the core team of the coalition negotiations. The compromise was accepted with a large majority. A further state party conference will decide in a few weeks whether there will be coalition negotiations after the explorations.
What do government skeptics say?
Only then will it become clearer whether the Left Party is capable of forming a coalition. In any case, the vote result could be closer: Ellen Brombacher, spokeswoman for the Communist Platform, said that although she was in favor of explorations, she did not yet know whether she would agree to coalition negotiations. The decisive factor is how bindingly the exploratory team agrees on expropriations. Chiara Stenger from the Left Youth Solid was fundamentally skeptical about government participation: She did not want to work with the Greens because they had “implemented racist migration policies”.
The left-wing federal chairwoman Ines Schwerdtner tried to capture the critics. Their skepticism is “not the problem, but our insurance for the future”. At the same time, she invoked the chances of governing: Elif Eralp could become a global role model in the Red City Hall and inspire the tenant movement in New York, Buenos Aires and Barcelona.
Others also had high expectations. The Kreuzberg Bundestag member Pascal Meiser said that only with Eralp as governing mayor could the left effectively counter the “rent mafia”. In the Prime Minister's Conference she will act as a “voice of resistance to social cuts”.
Whether such promises convince government skeptics within the party in the coming weeks will also depend on what assurances the Greens and SPD demand from the left against anti-Semitism. Many leftists found the statements made by the two election losers in the past few days to be excessive.
The Berlin Left Party state chairwoman Kerstin Wolter said at the party conference that the Left Party alone decides on the exclusion of problematic members. However, she made it clear that individual people had to work through “mistakes”. She did not mention the name of Neukölln Bundestag member Kocak. He did not take part in the party conference.
