“Spiegel” story about Elif Eralp: A question of security

When the Berlin House of Representatives met for its constituent session on Thursday morning, Elif Eralp was not in parliament. Two hours later, the top candidate of the Berlin Left Party, who wants to forge a coalition with the Greens and the SPD and be the first woman with a migrant background to move into the Red City Hall, appears in front of the press and makes a promise: “I can say clearly that I will ensure the safety of all Berliners as Governing Mayor.” She will “not allow herself to be intimidated by anyone” and will “fight against all forms of violence and organized crime”.

With her statement, the left-wing politician reacts to a publication by Spiegel with the title: “Elif Eralp reveals fear of terror sympathizers”. For those who have been wondering since Thursday morning whether the Berlin left-wing alliance could collapse before coalition negotiations have even begun, these are clear words. For those who deny the Left Party's ability to form a coalition because of its proximity to anti-Semitism and Islamism, however, they pay lip service.

According to Spiegel, Eralp said in an interview on Monday that she had not thought that the issue of Palestine could lead to border crossings at individual events during the election campaign. When asked: "By that you mean the terrorist sympathizer Ibrahim Ibrahim, who described the chief planner of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 as a 'martyr hero' and was at the election party in Neukölln," Eralp is said to have answered yes.

Neither the interview nor the question or Eralp's answer to it were printed. Because the question and answer were deleted from the authorization from the Left Party press office. Instead, the news magazine published a “cover story” in which a document accidentally returned by the press office containing Eralp’s comments on the conversation was made public. A journalistic transgression that Spiegel justified with the “political significance” of the notes with which Eralp had commented on the interview version.

“There is a PROBLEM,” one of the notes says. Eralp is then said to have named a man's name and written that he "doesn't want to give specific names, my husband and I don't either, he's afraid of these people and so am I." So is Eralp so afraid of a Hamas sympathizer like Ibrahim Ibrahim that she refuses to mention his name?

For the Berlin CDU it quickly becomes clear that this statement must not be without consequences. Top candidate Stefan Evers speaks out in the Bild newspaper and appeals to the SPD and the Greens to notice the “warning signals” and react before the start of coalition negotiations. “It’s not too late to draw conclusions,” said Evers.

The Greens and SPD gave the green light for coalition negotiations with the Left Party at the beginning of last week. On Saturday, the Left will decide at a party conference whether it wants to start coalition talks. If these are successful, all three parties want to survey their members before a coalition agreement is signed.

SPD state leader Bettina König will be at Eralp's side on Thursday. “That doesn’t put a strain on the negotiations for me personally,” König told the taz. She assumes that Eralp is strong enough for the job of governing mayor. “I got to know her as a strong personality.”

König's co-chairman Steffen Krach, however, is somewhat more cautious. “First of all, this shocks me because it shows that we have a serious problem with organized crime in this city,” says Krach about the Spiegel report. “That’s why the SPD said from the start that we have to strengthen the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, we have to strengthen the police.”

There should be no place for organized crime in Berlin. And: "There shouldn't be any Hamas sympathizers in this city who can move around freely. I don't want these terrorists in this city." However, it is still too early to evaluate the events described in Spiegel.

The relationship between the Left Party and pro-Palestinian activists was already the topic of Markus Lanz's talk show on Wednesday evening. There, Steffen Krach tried to downplay Vanessa Emde's personality. Emde, which received a direct mandate for the Left in Neukölln, had emphasized several times that states had no right to exist.

As a result, the parliamentary group leader of the Left Party withdrew its confidence in Emde and declared that there was “no common working basis”. The left-wing faction did not discuss expelling Emde from the parliamentary group on Tuesday. There will be another attempt to exclude them next week. It remains to be seen whether the necessary two-thirds majority will come together in the 44-member parliamentary group.

After repeated questions from Lanz, Krach explained on Wednesday evening that there would be no coalition between the SPD and the Left if Emde was part of the parliamentary group. On Thursday, the SPD leader weakened this again and said that there was “no basis for work” with Emde.

The Greens show solidarity with Eralp. “It is unacceptable that a leading politician has to fear for her safety,” says Green Party leader Bettina Jarasch. Such threats will be responded to using constitutional means. “We have already agreed in our exploratory paper that we will not save on security,” said Jarasch.

The left-wing alliance did not collapse on Thursday. But the SPD and the Greens will take a close look at the majority with which the Left Party Congress on Saturday speaks out in favor of coalition negotiations. It currently seems that this alliance can fail, especially because of the left itself.