Coalition negotiations | Left-wing leaders are putting Vanessa Emde under pressure

Vanessa Emde (The Left) after the first plenary session of the new Berlin House of Representatives Photo: Katrin Luxenburger/dpa After the Berlin Left leadership's request to give up their mandate, it is now MP Vanessa Emde's turn. The politician criticized for her positions on Israel must decide whether she is in line with the wishes of the party leadership or not. If Emde does not give back her mandate in the House of Representatives, her exclusion from the parliamentary group could be the next step. This requires a two-thirds majority in the parliamentary group of 44 members.

“We no longer trust her,” said state chairmen Kerstin Wolter and Maximilian Schirmer after the meeting on Friday. »She has repeatedly and deliberately ignored our joint decisions. We say: It's enough, enough is enough." A mandate is not an I-AG. »Mandates are won collectively: through the work and votes of candidates, members and the entire party. This gives rise to responsibility for one’s own actions.«

For Wolter it is a matter of course to give Emde the chance to change its behavior, said the state chairwoman on RBB Inforadio on Saturday. »And if she did that, then I would be happy that she could also be part of the parliamentary group and part of a constructive team […]. But at the moment she definitely doesn’t seem that way.”

Wolter also said that her criticism of Emde does not relate to the issue of Palestine solidarity. "The point here is that she refuses to work together and then also in a central function, namely as a member of our left there." Emde demonstrated against her own party leadership on the sidelines of a left party conference last weekend.

The appearance marked the temporary climax of a dispute that had been simmering for a long time. Review: At the inaugural Left parliamentary group meeting on October 13th, Emde, like all other MPs, initially signed a declaration on anti-Semitism, which affirmed the protection of Jewish life and Israel's right to exist. Shortly afterwards, she distanced herself from the question of Israel's right to exist in a video published on Instagram that caused a lot of controversy.

There she also repeated earlier statements from the election campaign that there was no right to exist for states, only for people. The parliamentary group executive committee led by parliamentary group leaders Elif Eralp and Tobias Schulze then declared that they no longer saw a common basis for working with Emde. That didn't change even after a fruitless conversation with Emde on October 27th.

“Vanessa Emde has a week to return to us,” said Wolter and Schirmer. “To do this, she should delete her Instagram post, apologize for her appearance on the sidelines of the party conference and promise constructive cooperation based on our decisions.”

The following applies to the Berlin Left: “We make our decisions together and stick to them together. None of us should make our own party vulnerable." But the stance remains clear: "Solidarity with the Palestinians, commitment to our own state and equal rights for all people." The left is firmly against anti-Semitism and stands for Israel's right to exist out of historical responsibility. “This foundation applies to everyone who speaks in our name.”

Meanwhile, SPD state leader Steffen Krach reiterated his position, which he has already expressed several times, according to which he sees consequences in the Emde case as a condition for his approval of a possible coalition agreement with the Left and the Greens. “If this is not clarified by the time the coalition talks are concluded, I cannot recommend that my party agree to the coalition agreement,” Krach told “Welt am Sonntag.” There must be clarity before the SPD member vote on the desired coalition agreement planned for January.

In the House of Representatives election on September 20th, the Left was the strongest force with 25.7 percent. With a first vote of 46.2 percent, Emde won a direct mandate in her constituency in Neukölln.

The red-green-red coalition negotiations began last Monday. If this is successful, Eralp could become the first governing mayor of the Left in Berlin. dpa/nd

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