INTERVIEW - ‘What was possible in New York can be possible in Berlin’: German Left candidate looks to Mamdani model

• Eralp points to New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s 2025 win as a blueprint, campaigning on lower rents, cheaper transit and a more affordable Berlin
• She condemns Berlin’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests, stressing that criticizing Netanyahu’s war crimes in Gaza is not antisemitism

Germany’s capital Berlin -- also a city-state -- is preparing for one of its most closely watched state elections.

Elif Eralp, a human rights advocate of Turkish origin, has surprised many observers and is now leading in the polls. She has embraced New York mayor Zohran Mamdani’s vision of democratic socialism as her campaign blueprint.

If her Left Party finishes first on Sunday and forms a coalition, the 45-year-old would become the city-state’s first governing mayor with a migration background and the first from the socialist party.

“I think we have a real chance to make history in Berlin,” Eralp told Anadolu. “To finally put the interests of Berliners first -- without dividing people by origin or social background.”

The Left Party leads with 23% in the latest survey by public broadcaster ZDF, two points ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) stands at 17%.

If Eralp wins and manages to forge a Left Party-led coalition, it would signal a significant political shift in one of the world’s most cosmopolitan cities.

Eralp’s campaign echoes Mamdani’s New York win

A member of Berlin’s state parliament since 2021, Eralp has built her campaign around soaring rents, costly public transport and persistent problems with waste collection on Berlin’s streets.

She said Mamdani’s 2025 victory offered a model for left-wing parties worldwide, including Germany’s left, and that both campaigns share a focus on making a big city affordable.

“He focused on social demands and that's what we also do. And he brought different communities together, that was a big success, and that's what we also try to do,” she said. “I hope what in Manhattan, in New York was possible will be possible here in Berlin as well.”

Eralp’s campaign centers on three main pledges -- curbing rent hikes, cutting bus and train fares, and tackling what she calls chaos in the city’s waste collection -- issues she says affect Berliners overall regardless of social or ethnic background.

“We want to make Berlin affordable again and the biggest problem is the housing problem because the rents are much too high,” she said. “So we want to lower the rents and we want to have cheaper buses and trains and also we want to solve the garbage problem in our streets.”

‘Berlin vote would send a strong message to the AfD’

The election comes just two weeks after the right-wing AfD’s strong showing in Saxony-Anhalt on Sept. 6.

Eralp said a Left Party victory in Berlin would send a “powerful signal” against the far right and show mainstream parties that campaigns focused on people’s real problems --and backed by a strong program -- can succeed.

“A lot of people are very frustrated with the mainstream politics. They think that the politicians, they just make for themselves politics and that's why we should go and listen,” she said.

Eralp said her team is going door to door, including in AfD strongholds. Many voters, she said, fear economic decline and slipping down the social ladder. Some have embraced the far right’s anti-immigration rhetoric, blaming refugees and immigrants for the city’s problems.

“The root cause lies in neoliberal policies, austerity measures, and cutbacks that fail to support the poorest and those struggling in our city and country,” she said.

Eralp accused Merz’s CDU of echoing the AfD’s anti-immigration line, ultimately strengthening the far right rather than weakening it.

“They are making policies against refugees, against migrant people and I think they made just the AfD stronger instead of fighting against them,” she said. “We need a social policy, we need affordable Berlin, affordable cities that would be a big step against the rise of the far-right.”

Reaching out to Berlin’s Palestinian community

Eralp also criticized the outgoing Governing Mayor Kai Wegner’s CDU-led government for failing to ease the city’s social and economic problems, and for cracking down on pro-Palestinian protests, including the cancellation of events in recent years and disproportionate police force against peaceful demonstrators.

“The mayor of Berlin never listened to the issues of the Palestinian people here in Berlin, which is a big mistake. He should see all the people, the Palestinians, the Jewish people, the Muslim people, everybody who lives here,” she said.

“We saw a lot of violence and repression against the people. And I want that this stops. I think the freedom of speech and the freedom of manifestation is very important in all fields and that’s what we want to change when I’m in the government.”

Eralp rejected accusations of antisemitism against her party, saying she and her colleagues have backed initiatives to combat antisemitism and support Israel’s right to exist, just as they support Palestine’s right to exist. Condemning war crimes by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in Gaza is not antisemitism, she stressed.

“The far-right government of Israel is accused by doing war crimes and genocide in front of the international court,” she said, pointing to International Criminal Court cases involving Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“And I think that it’s time to take responsibility for all these crimes and that the international politicians will support that this happens.”