Heidi Reichinnek hopes for electoral success for the Left in Berlin

The left-wing parliamentary group leader Heidi Reichinnek is hoping for election success in Berlin after her party's poor performance in Saxony-Anhalt. “I was in Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday,” she said that evening at a campaign event in Berlin-Lichtenberg. "Even though things fortunately look completely different here in Berlin, it's just a really blatant development that for the first time since 1945 a right-wing extremist party has become the strongest force in a federal state."

That is a turning point. “But giving up is not an option,” said Reichinnek. “Especially when we have the chance here in Berlin to really create something completely different. Because something really bad can happen on September 20th,” said the politician, referring to Berlin’s left-wing top candidate Elif Eralp. “We could have a left-wing mayor for the first time.”

Reichinnek wants election success in the capital

If the Left becomes the strongest party in the election for the Berlin House of Representatives, it will be a positive sign not only for Saxony-Anhalt, but for the entire country. “I mean, what kind of departure signal is that? “That would be exactly what we all need right now to get out of this slump,” said Reichinnek. “Yes, that would be my very, very big wish.”

In the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday, the AfD was by far the strongest force with 43.8 percent of the vote. The CDU fell to 17.2 percent, the Left to 8.6 percent. In the polls for the House of Representatives election in Berlin, the Left was recently in the top places together with the CDU and AfD. Left-wing leading candidate Eralp is relying on a coalition with the Greens and the SPD, for which there is a mathematical majority in the surveys.