Two weeks after anti-immigrant nationalists finished first in a statewide election in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, Berlin is bracing for a mayoral contest on Sunday that could elect an anti-capitalist strongly inspired by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Elif Eralp, a 45-year-old human rights advocate and daughter of Turkish immigrants, is serving as the mayoral candidate for the party known as Die Linke, or the Left. The party has focused on housing affordability and cost-of-living issues during the campaign and leads narrowly in polls ahead of Berlin’s municipal elections.
If Die Linke and Eralp are successful, it would mark the first time a candidate from the party would become mayor of the city since German reunification. Eralp would also be the first mayor of Turkish descent in Berlin — the capital of a country with the largest Turkish diaspora in the world.
Once an underdog in the New York mayoral race, Mamdani harnessed the power of social media and door-to-door campaigning to get elected. A self-described democratic socialist, Mamdani’s proposals included a rent freeze, free universal child care, state-run grocery stores and free city buses. Since his successful 2025 campaign for mayor, Die Linke and other European left parties have cited it as a model for future campaigns.
Die Linke party members traveled to New York in the weeks leading up to the city’s mayoral race to learn more about Mamdani’s campaign and met with some of his advisers, according to Liza Pflaum, a member of the delegation.
“It’s not really a new line for Die Linke — we had already shifted our focus and communications for the last Bundestag election in ’24, with a clear focus on issues relevant to affordable living. We continued that in Berlin, but we also let ourselves be explicitly inspired there by Zohran Mamdani’s campaign,” Pflaum, who is head of digital communications for Die Linke, said.
Eralp’s rise also comes amid generational turnover within Die Linke. These younger leaders in Die Linke garnered large followings on social media, often countering attacks from the social media-savvy politicians from the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
Die Linke called Mamdani’s election in November “a win for the working class” on social media, showing Eralp’s image side-by-side with a picture of the mayor-elect.
Eralp also met with Morris Katz, a Democratic strategist and adviser to Mamdani, according to Pflaum.
Die Linke, like the democratic socialist’s campaign in New York, has invested heavily in door-to-door volunteers. And like Mamdani, Eralp has also focused on lowering the cost of living.
In the midst of a housing shortage in the city, which now boasts nearly 4 million residents, Eralp has proposed introducing rent caps for Berlin’s publicly owned housing. She also wants to establish a task force focused on excessive rental prices.
Die Linke has also said it aims to build more municipal housing in the capital and has supported expropriating apartments owned by corporate housing firms.
Eralp’s election is anything but a sure thing.
Polls show the AfD party and Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) following close behind Die Linke. The Greens and Social Democrats are also polling above 10 percent in the race.
Eralp’s main rival is CDU candidate Stefan Evers, who has called Die Linke a security risk, in part over claims that the party would slash police budgets.
The AfD’s lead candidate is Kristin Brinker. Brinker, who opposes asylum seekers obtaining subsidized housing, said in a statement that her party wants to “give long-term Berliners, families and people who keep this city running a fair chance at state-owned housing, and create more opportunities for tenants to become homeowners.” She said this stance is “fundamentally different from the Left’s emphasis on expanding public ownership through expropriation and stronger rent controls.”
Further complicating the race is that Berliners do not vote directly for a mayor. They select a party to represent them in the state’s House of Representatives. The House then elects a mayor. It’s likely that if Die Linke wins, the party will still need to form a coalition with other minority parties to obtain a majority of votes.
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