Elections in Berlin and Meck-Pomm: A left-wing victory that doesn't feel like it

T he first picture that the elections in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania offer is very mixed. The catastrophe in Saxony-Anhalt, where the AfD marched through to almost 44 percent two weeks ago, did not provide the hoped-for boost in mobilization for the constitutional democratic parties. The great success of the Left in the capital cannot neutralize the fact that the AfD came out ahead of the SPD in the northeast.

Nevertheless, a first tribute goes to Manuela Schwesig: Chapeau! Making up so much ground against the AfD within a year is a real achievement. Now Schwesig has not taken their votes away from the right-wing extremist group, but rather has gathered the non-right wing camp together in the election campaign that was entirely focused on “SPD against AfD”.

But at least a social democrat has shown how the election campaign works against the right: self-confident, confident, biting, but also warm and approachable. Schwesig can no longer get her smooth red-red coalition and will probably still need the toleration of the reduced CDU even for a three-way alliance with the Greens.

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In Berlin, where almost twice as many eligible voters live as in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, there is enough for a left-liberal alliance under left-wing frontwoman Elif Eralp. Red-red-green with a migrant woman at the top – Berlin would live up to its reputation as a progressive laboratory.

Eralp also deserves the greatest respect: she pushed aside a CDU that could hardly find its footing after the departure of the unfortunate mayor Kai Wegner. The SPD and the Greens in Berlin may secretly long to make a pact with the CDU. But they can hardly avoid getting involved with a left that has set an extremely high priority on the socialization of real estate companies and has comrades in its ranks in the Neukölln district who are immune neither to anti-Semitism nor to a loss of reality.

The Chancellor is now just as liable for the disastrous CDU results as the mutineers in the CDU ranks recently predicted. But Friedrich Merz was apparently strengthened to such an extent in the meeting with the party leadership and the CDU Prime Minister on election day that he announced in a bizarre appearance immediately after 6 p.m. that he would not allow himself to be deterred from his well-known program - reforms are necessary, it hurts, youth needs a future, will continue to work. It may be that this will bring some peace back to the Union.

In this respect, despite all the uncertainties that still lurk before and behind the 5 percent hurdles, this last election day of the year could result in a result that has long been longed for in the left-wing camp: two red-red-green coalitions, a progressive integration figure at the head of the capital. It would be a victory. If only it felt like that too.