Elections in Berlin | Incredible ride to the Red Town Hall

First forecast and in the front row, second from the right, top left-wing candidate Elif Eralp Photo: dpa/Sebastian Gollnow Sunday evening, Festsaal Kreuzberg, election party of the Berlin Left. "It's not planned that someone like me or you will become mayor," says top candidate Elif Eralp, alluding to her Turkish origins. She was born in Munich in 1981. But her parents had fled their homeland to the Federal Republic just months earlier after a military coup. Now, against all odds, Elif Eralp could become the new Governing Mayor of Berlin. Because her party won the House of Representatives election on Sunday with a lead over the CDU.

Shortly before the first forecast is shown on the television screens in the Kreuzberg festival hall at 6 p.m., Eralp is in the audience in the front row, with state chairmen Kerstin Wolter and Maximilian Schirmer next to him, as well as federal chairwoman Ines Schwerdtner, Bundestag member Ferat Koçak, Berlin left-wing faction leader Tobias Schulze and state manager Bjoern Tielebein. These seven have their arms over each other's shoulders and stand in the center circle like soccer players during a penalty shootout when one of their team kicks the ball in front of the goal.

First, the television shows the forecast for the simultaneous state elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. There are boos for the AfD's strong result there, which is ahead of all other parties at 37 percent. When five percent promised entry into the state parliament for the BSW, someone in the ballroom shouted “Ugh.”

Then the forecast for Berlin: As expected, only 20 percent for the CDU, but 24.5 percent for the Left. Hardly anyone would have thought this much possible in their wildest dreams. The most favorable opinion poll before the election had promised 23 percent and in most cases it was a few percentage points less. Indescribable cheers erupt. Eralp and the others are in each other's arms. The state chairman, Schirmer, first has to collect himself and groans after a grueling election campaign: "Guys, what a ride."

“This is a phenomenal result,” enthuses co-chair Wolter. She immediately promises: "We will take on the rent mafia!" In addition to a rent freeze for the state-owned housing companies, the expropriation of large private housing stocks is part of the Left's declared plan to combat the housing shortage in the capital. Wolter then loses her temper a bit when she exclaims: “The Left Berlin is a brand and the other parties are nothing.”

The crowd chants like crazy: "Elif, Elif, Elif, Elif..." At one point a young man with colorful hair shouts: "Alerta, alerta, antifascista!" Then the entire hall shouts long and loudly. Finally, there is the slogan: “High international solidarity!”

“Starting today, we’re changing Berlin – all of us together.”

“We made history together,” said top candidate Eralp, commenting on the election victory. She calls out to her enthusiastic comrades: “Starting today, we are changing Berlin – all of us together.” Eralp thanks everyone who helped to make this possible. She thanks her parents and she also thanks her relatives in Turkey, "who prayed for me every day." She also speaks a few words of thanks in Turkish, addressed to those Turks who live in Berlin but do not have German citizenship and who therefore were not allowed to vote, but definitely wanted to help in the election campaign.

Even before the first forecast, three helpers who were not eligible to vote were celebrated on the stage as examples for many others: Ukrainian leftists, Russian-speaking leftists, friends of the Workers' Party of Türkiye. A large group of doorstep campaigners are also invited up. There they intone their battle cry together with the entire hall: “Berlin, front door goddess!”

The Berlin Left rang 250,000 doorbells during the election campaign. One person who was particularly hard-working said on stage that he mainly did it so that Elif Eralp could become mayor. He reports that the people in the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district were the friendliest. Once a woman came out of the apartment door to talk to him - and the door closed behind her. The woman didn't have her key with her. But the campaigner was able to open the door with a credit card.

As Elif Eralp leaves the stage, "Şıkıdım" is played, a hit by the Turkish singer Tarkan from the 1990s. Many of the new and very young members of the Berlin Left were very small or not even born when this song was released in 1994. In 2023, when the then Bundestag member Sahra Wagenknecht left the Left and prepared to found her own party, the BSW, the Berlin Left only had around 7,000 members. Now there are more than 19,000. There were over 3,000 new entries in the recent election campaign alone.

Just one kilometer away from the Kreuzberg festival hall, in the Jockel beer garden, BSW supporters gathered for the election party. They also cheer at the first forecast. With five percent, entry into the House of Representatives would be possible, which in the meantime hardly anyone would have given a damn.

At the BSW, head of state Alexander King and others are also celebrating the first forecast, but a little more cautiously. Photo: dpa/Michael Bahlo Sevim Dağdelen sat for Die Linke in the Bundestag, but with the BSW narrowly missed their re-entry in February 2025. Now she doesn't want to celebrate her entry into the Berlin House of Representatives too soon. Not that it doesn't work out in the end. But as the evening progresses, it becomes increasingly likely that the BSW will jump the five percent hurdle and thereby even do the left a service. Because then it doesn't seem to be enough for a coalition of the CDU, the Greens and the SPD. In Dağdelen's opinion, that would be a good thing: "Elif Eralp in the Red City Hall and us in the House of Representatives."

Brandenburg's BSW parliamentary group leader Niels-Olaf Lüders commented on the Berlin election and the fate of the BSW at around 7 p.m. with the words: "We were kept silent, ignored and pronounced dead - and now we are back again. That's who we are in any case." Even if the Berlin BSW narrowly fails, the result will definitely be a huge success, says Lüders.

State Chairman Alexander King also sees it that way. Elected for Die Linke, after moving to BSW he was the only member of this new party in the Berlin House of Representatives. Now his greatest wish seems to have been fulfilled: rejoining the BSW in faction strength. But initially no one wants to believe too early that this is certain. When the song “This is what winners look like” sounds on the tape, some people still shake their heads in concern. It has just rained heavily in Berlin. Not that there's another cold shower. And actually, the BSW slipped to 4.7 percent and remained there at 10 p.m., when 3,851 of 4,114 electoral areas had been counted.

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