Berlin Left Party Eyes Mayoralty Amid Shifting Political Landscape

"We are fighting in Berlin to turn the city red," read the lead motion presented to the delegates at the Left Party's federal party convention. Red is the color of the Left Party, but also of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD).

According to latest polls, a three-way coalition of both alongside the Greens could secure a majority in the September election for the city state's parliament.

Berlin has been "red" in the past. From 2016 to 2023 it was governed by such a three-way coalition — under the leadership of successive SPD mayors. This time, the Left Party is dreaming of winning the election and taking over the mayoralty itself with its candidate Elif Eralp.

The 45-year-old has a remarkable background: Her parents were active in politics and trade unions in Turkey before fleeing to Germany in 1980 as asylum-seekers following a military coup, just weeks before Eralp's birth.

Winning the election won't be easy. Berlin's current governing Christian Democratic Union (CDU) still leads the polls at 20%, but Eralp is hoping to win not only in her party's traditionally left-wing base in neighborhoods like Neukölln and Friedrichshain, but also farther afield.

The party wants to replicate the "miracle of New York," where the socialist Democrat Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor despite significant opposition.

The Left Party is the descendant of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), which ruled East Germany from 1949 to 1989 as a dictatorship, though it has long since established itself as a part of Germany's political landscape.

The party is currently part of coalition governments in two of Germany's 16 states: the city-state of Bremen and the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. In Thuringia, the party even led the government with its premier, Bodo Ramelow, until 2024.

On the federal level, however, the Left Party has little chance of gaining power, partly because its foreign and security policy platform is deemed as too radical by many voters: The party is opposed to all arms exports and Germany's decision to pursue rearmament following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

"When we on the Left say we need a different Europe, we do not mean a military superpower or an EU army, but rather a force for peace that is capable of defense but does not export violence — neither in economic nor in military form," the party leadership wrote in its lead motion for the June convention in Potsdam.

The Left Party accuses Chancellor Friedrich Merz, whose center-right CDU leads the government, of allowing the military budget to balloon while simultaneously dismantling the welfare state. The socialists also oppose Merz's planned reforms to the health care and pension systems because, they argue, they simply amount to budget cuts that will place more financial burdens on citizens.

For weeks, the Left Party has been organizing protests across Germany under the slogan "Enough is enough! Make life affordable!" In doing so, it is hoping to build on its massive door-to-door canvassing campaign during the 2025 federal election, when the party almost doubled its vote share and took nearly 9% of the national vote.

Political scientist Antonios Souris of Berlin's Free University believes the Left Party could take the lead on issues such as housing and social policy, and present itself as an alternative to the SPD and the Greens.

The party's designated co-leader, Luigi Pantisano, could champion this cause. Pantisano's parents came to Germany from Italy in the 1960s and he grew up in modest, working-class circumstances.

"The Left Party will be able to demonstrate through its leadership what it stands for — namely, a multicultural society in which people with immigrant backgrounds also hold important positions," Souris told DW.

Pantisano is set to lead the Left Party alongside co-chair Ines Schwertner, who has been in office since 2024. Schwertner, who was born in the GDR just before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, represents the new generation within the Left Party, which is predominantly young and female.

The average age of delegates at the party convention is just 37, and 53% of the delegates are women. Nationwide, the Left Party is polling at just over 10%, and its membership has more than doubled since 2023, reaching over 125,000.

But these new members have also made headlines with controversial statements on the Middle East, which have led to accusations of antisemitism from some media outlets and rival political parties. The party leadership has been keen to keep a lid on the debate.

Whether this will work will be one of the key issues to watch out for, according to political analyst Souris. "Do the new members already have a certain degree of loyalty to the party as a whole that would lead them to set aside their own interests?" he wondered.

This article was originally published in German.