Left-wing candidate for the Berlin election: How Elif Eralp fights for the Red Town Hall

The Left Party is in a head-to-head race with the CDU in polls on the Berlin House of Representatives election. Her top candidate fights above all against high rents and is highly polarised in the election campaign. Boris Hermel and Mirja Fiedler, RBB Elif Eralp laugh a lot - again this afternoon in August in a backyard in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Your party friends have transformed a wooden market stall with an awning into a neighbourhood canteen.

The top candidate of the left stands with a ladle and plastic bowls behind her and distributes food - mashed potatoes, oven vegetables, rolls and a banana for three euros. "Later, when I am Governing Mayor, we want to introduce this throughout Berlin," says the 45-year-old in her red apron with the slogan "Eat the rich". Left-wing top candidate polarizes in the election campaign "Cool!", says a graphic designer from an animation studio next door, who comes over for lunch with her colleagues. "Where can you get food for three euros today?

I think even shopping would be more expensive." Nevertheless, it's not just feel-good conversations for the lead candidate. The Kreuzberg veteran and head of the punk artist group"Die Tödliche Doris", Wolfgang Müller, likes to take the three-euro plate, but also wants to know what to say to his friend from Elif Eralp. He voted for the PDS 25 years ago and now doesn't believe the Left anymore because it had agreed to the sale of the largest state-owned housing company in Berlin at the time. Elif Eralp admits mistakes of her party "That was a big mistake", the left-wing politician bluntly admits, even if the savings pressure on the budget and from the SPD was huge at the time.

Today, the left would never agree to such a sale again, says the lawyer, laughing. "That's where we've been learning for the last 25 years." Today, Elif Eralp wants to bring the apartments of large private corporations back into public ownership, i.e. to socialise them in return for compensation and thus implement the successful referendum of 2021 in Berlin. It is probably the hottest iron in the election campaign in the capital. The black-red federal government is now planning a law banning socialisation.

In addition, Berlin's top SPD candidate Steffen Krach has declared the topic an exclusion criterion for a possible red-green-red coalition. Lawyer wants to socialize large private housing stocks Born in Munich, Eralp sees no reason at all to move away from the claim. "Ultimately, the referendum must be taken seriously by all democratic parties," says the daughter of Turkish immigrants. "That was not an order that went specifically to the left." Her parents fled Turkey as socialists and trade unionists.

Elif Eralp was often at demonstrations as a child. Today, the posters of the left read "Mietabzocke stoppen" (Stop rental rip-off). Eilf Eralp himself wears a gold chain with the words "Mietendeckel" around his neck. The left is also calling for the state-owned societies as well as an office against usury and a municipal social housing program.

Entrepreneurs are alarmed Many contractors sharply criticize the plans of the left. "This is a real problem, because ultimately we do not solve the housing issue by capping rents," argues Thomas Doll. "We want to make Berlin affordable and that people can all have a good life here - regardless of income or origin," Elif Eralp countered in his construction site office. Among other things, in the former working-class district of Berlin-Friedrichshain, contractor Jürgen Leibfried has built an entire quarter - including social housing and daycare - against resistance from the left.

His company has already created more than 24,000 apartments in Berlin. "If she acts as she is announcing here, then I am rather sceptical about the plans," says Jürgen Leibfried about Elif Eralp. "That's a shame," the left-leaning top candidate replies. Renting according to infratest dimap most important topic for voters The politician lives with her husband and two children in the district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg.

Nine years ago, she joined Die Linke and was particularly active against racism and discrimination. Elif Eralp has been in the Berlin House of Representatives for five years and is deputy chairwoman of the state. In 2023, she was instrumental in the party exclusion proceedings against Sahra Wagenknecht and fully supported the course of the then federal leadership to focus on Jan van Aken and Ines Schwerdtner, especially on the topic of housing. At least in the surveys, that pays off.

In the Berlin trend of infratest dimap, living and renting is seen as by far the most important electoral issue. In the mid-September survey, the left was ahead with 21 percent. CDU criticises the Left's stance on anti-Semitism The ruling CDU has chosen the Left as its main opponent in the election campaign. It accuses the party, for example, of tolerating anti-Semitism in its ranks.

Elif Eralp refers to her five-point plan against Jew-hatred. “We stand for the protection and security of Jewish life as well as for the protection of Muslim and Palestinian life,” she says. “With me in Red City Hall, we will strengthen the fight against anti-Semitism." Linke presents itself as a caretaker In Berlin-Lichtenberg, a poster with the top candidate in front of a supermarket reads "Get your piece of the cake". Elif Eralp is fighting for votes there with plucked cake at the information booth.

The mother of two, whose parents left Turkey shortly before her birth in 1980, wants to appear like one who knows the worries of people with little money from her own experience. She says she embodies the program of the left with her own story. Because the party had become younger, bigger, especially more diverse and more migrant. In Lichtenberg, the left-leaning top candidate listens to the concerns of a tenant advisory board member.

Monika Pastille fears that with a planned new high-rise building, rents in the neighbourhood will continue to rise. The tenant advisory board is convinced that the East is less important to the current Senate than the West. "We know that people here also have important concerns and that the East Berlin region is not sufficiently taken into account," admits Elif Eralp. Ukraine war controversial in election campaign But the tone of the supposed home game in East Berlin changes when the left-leaning top candidate is confronted with her party's stance on the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine.

A pensioner calls for an end to arms supplies to Kiev and negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Then Putin must also be willing to accept the sovereignty of Ukraine," Elif Eralp replies. After all, Ukraine could not cede any territories. "You have to meet him," the pensioner argues loudly.

“Ukraine doesn't give a shit about us. We want peace." The left-leaning leading candidate ends the discussion: "There are different perspectives on it." The leftists are in agreement about their goal for the parliamentary election on 20 September in Berlin. "The Red Town Hall must finally really turn red," explains Elif Eralp.