Left-wing top candidate in Berlin: “Hello, I’m Elif”

It could all be so beautiful. But now it's Wednesday, eleven days until the election, and Elif Eralp encounters a tiger in a frenzy. Eralp sits on a podium in the largest synagogue in Berlin with his back arched and a stone face. The Jewish community has invited the Democratic top candidates, and the stage is lit like a television studio.

The tiger is Constantin Schreiber, currently an employee of Springer-Verlag; he is supposed to moderate today. Although “moderate” doesn’t precisely describe his appearance. Schreiber sits on the edge of his seat, ready to attack. He immediately shoots at Eralp, doesn't let her utter a single sentence, and in the meantime he seems to forget the other candidates. But the first question he asks Eralp is justified: “Mrs Eralp, is the left partly to blame for anti-Semitism, yes or no?”

Over the next hour, the moderator will accuse her of spreading the “fairy tale” of anti-Muslim racism, and he will accuse her of not warning about anti-Semitism in Turkish. The chairman of the community eagerly jumps to his aid. He asks Eralp whether she would deport “asylum seekers” if they murdered a Jew.

Eralp stays calm and talks about anti-Semitism on the left. About her party she says the not very reassuring sentence: “The very large majority in my party stands for the protection of Jewish life.” She says that she has been committed to commemorating the attack on the synagogue in Halle for years. Eralp makes it clear that it is wrong to pit racism and anti-Semitism against each other.

While Eralp is being cross-examined, the CDU candidate leans back in his chair, smiling. His party colleagues are suspected of having given away millions of euros intended for the fight against anti-Semitism to friends in the “funding affair”. But the moderator doesn't ask about that. Only Elif Eralp mentions on stage that the AfD has just won an election and what threat it is to Jews. If we needed another example of how politics is made with the accusation that anti-Semitism is the problem of leftists and foreigners - this event provides it.

But it is also true: Elif Eralp has her comrades to thank for the fact that Elif Eralp has to speak about anti-Semitism in her party eleven days before the election in Berlin. At the invitation of the Left in Neukölln, a rapper appeared who glorified terrorist attacks from the stage (“Intifada like the PFLP”) and was not thrown off the stage. Since then, the left has threatened to lose control of the election campaign. And it's not just Jews in Berlin who are wondering who they would actually vote for: Elif Eralp, who many people believe is not their commitment, or a black box called the Left Party?

Everything had started so well. Elif Eralp, mother of two children, was just an unknown expert politician from the second row. Then the left managed to make it popular with a campaign in the style of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and set the topic of the election campaign with rent policy. The shock from Saxony-Anhalt should give her a push in the last few meters. Elif Eralp would be the first leftist and the first woman with Turkish roots in the Red City Hall.

Can Elif Eralp manage this – with and despite her party?

Four weeks before, Berlin-Charlottenburg, doorstep election campaign. The neighborhood isn't exactly a home game for the Left, but now, in mid-August, Eralp seems to be succeeding. She rings the bell through the stairwells, taking the stairs two at a time. Eralp knocks and takes a step back. When the door opens, she always says the same sentence: "Hello, I'm Elif, and I wanted to ask where the shoe pinches."

Then it starts: the walk to school is too dangerous, the construction sites are a nuisance when walking the dog, there are too many alcoholics sitting in front of the supermarket. No classic left-wing topics, often local politics. But Elif Eralp says “Hm, hm, hm” very understandingly and then says: “I’ll definitely take that with me.” Talking to voters is one of the candidate's strengths; this is where she can show off her warmth. And often it's enough for someone to listen at all.

Behind almost every apartment door that opens this Saturday there is someone who says: I vote for you. What worries most people are the high rents.

Eralp also has her comrades to thank for the fact that she is leading in the polls. On the street, Eralp repeatedly runs into groups of leftists who ring doorbells for her. Many are in their early 20s, they wear left-wing high-visibility vests and a keffiyeh over their shoulders. No party rings so many doorbells, no election poster is seen so often in Berlin: Elif, Elif, Elif. The Left is now the largest party in the city, and its membership has doubled since the campaign before the federal election. It has become a different party.

The strategy has also changed: there is a courage to personalize, which the left previously rejected as a personality cult. In the spring they brought the strategist behind Zohran Mamdani's campaign to Berlin, Morris Katz. Eralp has undergone coaching and she speaks more freely and better. But people around her also say: She remains a German lawyer, not an entertainer like the role model from New York.

And there is another crucial difference. In Berlin, the Left needs coalition partners in order to be able to govern. And that could be difficult.

Because the left only wants to govern if the referendum that called for the socialization of large housing companies is implemented. The SPD's top candidate has ruled this out, but is now involved in an affair involving alleged bribery. That's how it is now in Berlin - the big left needs the small SPD.

Officially, Eralp supports her party's red line. But if you talk to her, it becomes clear that she would like to govern if her party would let her. Not taking advantage of a left-wing majority in Berlin again should definitely not happen. But what could a compromise with the SPD look like regarding socialization?

After this question, Eralp's attitude changes. While she had just chatted in a relaxed manner, she is now in control, her cheeks are turning red. “I won’t say anything about that.” Consultation on this within the party. And she also has her contacts in the SPD.

The V question could become a trick question for Elif Eralp, a question to which there is no correct answer. If she insists on socialization, a majority in parliament will be difficult. If she is too soft, her party base will reject a coalition.

If you walk through the streets of Berlin with Elif Eralp these days, you will always be greeted in Turkish. “Elif, what are the latest polls?” “Elif, I’ve just been naturalized, I’ll definitely vote for you.” Surprised, she turns to her employee. “Great, suddenly I’m recognized.” It's a new experience for them.

Elif Eralp is 45 years old, her parents fled from Turkey to Germany as socialists, she in her mother's womb. Eralp was born in Munich and grew up in Hamburg-Altona. There she went to the middle school, not the comprehensive school next door. The video in which she announced her candidacy for mayor begins with the sentence: “People like me aren’t supposed to be mayor in this country.” That's true - but the sentence also applies to Kai Wegner, the son of a construction worker. Eralp's father was a doctor.

Her life path is more typical of a left-wing activist. As a child, she painted posters for environmental protection, then studied law and blocked the Castor. She can vividly tell the story of how a squadron of riders galloped towards her. She could soon be in charge of 18,000 police officers.

Eralp also owes its success to what the competition has to offer: three grizzled men of almost the same age who hardly anyone knows are running for the Greens, SPD and CDU. In a city where almost every second resident has a migration background and every second resident is a woman, Eralp has an advantage. And it benefits from a longer trend: the left was already the strongest force here in the federal election. Will it work again? The latest polls see the Left just ahead of the CDU.

Elif Eralp recently met Bodo Ramelow for dinner. Ramelow is the only leftist who has ever been prime minister. They were sitting in a restaurant with a view of the Spree and there was pasta. While eating, Eralp took notes.

Ramelow tells the taz that he got to know Eralp as a sober, professional politician and was skeptical when he found out about her candidacy. That is different now.

On the left, Ramelow is considered a strong voice in the fight against anti-Semitism. The party has changed in recent years, he says. And: “I am glad that Elif is stable and is not silent about anti-Semitism.”

Ramelow and Eralp don't want to reveal what exactly they talked about. Ramelow told her about the loneliness in office, about the burden of responsibility on her shoulders. As Prime Minister, Ramelow told her, it was no longer just about the party's interests. “Sometimes you have to make very lonely decisions, Elif.”