Causa Vanessa Emde: The long run-up to exclusion

Can a coalition fail because of a single parliamentarian? In Berlin already. That's up to MP Vanessa Emde. Because the SPD and the Greens only want to enter into a red-green-red alliance if she does not remain a member of the left-wing faction.

For critics, Emde, 45, symbolizes exactly the anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel in the ranks of her state association, which caused many debates even before the election on September 20th. All the more so because a red-green-red alliance would bring the Left Party into the Red City Hall for the first time and make its current parliamentary group leader Elif Eralp the governing mayor.

Emde continues to deny Israel's right to exist. Because she not only thinks so, but also continues to announce it publicly, the SPD in particular is pushing for her to be excluded from the parliamentary group.

Last week, the state executive of the Left Party called on Emde to resign her mandate and thus return it to the party. Emde, directly elected in a constituency in the Berlin district of Neukölln with a lead of over 20 percentage points, rejected this two days later.

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The parliamentary group in the House of Representatives has now announced that it will prepare a motion for exclusion. Deadlines must be adhered to, which means that Emde could not be excluded until the next parliamentary group meeting on November 24th at the earliest.

But the action of the faction leadership around the possible future head of government Eralp seems rather slow. It seems as if Eralp and the parliamentary group executive are not sure whether there is enough support for Emde to be excluded. A two-thirds majority is required for this.

SPD leader Krach has not set a deadline by when Emde has to be out. But he is not considered a big fan of a left-wing alliance anyway. He is also under great pressure from his own federal party and former Berlin SPD leaders not to form a coalition with the Left Party.

The latest SPD internal resistance is forming behind the website “Not at any price”. It says: “Under the current conditions, we strongly oppose a coalition with the Berlin Left.” The most prominent name among the SPD's more than 2,300 supporters by midweek is the party's most popular politician nationwide, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius. Former Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, who belongs to the left wing of the SPD, also joined the call.

The pressure from leading federal Greens on the Berlin Greens is similarly great. It is less likely that they will be impressed by this than with the SPD: with the Berlin Greens, criticism from the federal level and even more so from pragmatists like Cem Özdemir is usually seen as confirmation that they are completely right.

However, red-green-red would not be safe even if Emdes were excluded. At the end of the negotiations, all three possible coalition partners will have their entire membership vote on the matter.