The far-left Die Linke party won Berlin elections Sunday (September 20, 2026), according to exit polls, making its lead candidate Elif Eralp the top contender to become the next mayor of Germany’s capital city.
Eralp, 45, and her pro-poor party have promised dramatic steps to solve Berlin’s housing crisis and bring down rents, including with a controversial pledge to expropriate flats held by large corporate landlords. Ms. The daughter of Turkish migrants, Eralp has also campaigned as being the best person to counter the rise of the far-right and anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Ms. Eralp — whose party wants to reduce social inequality and the power of big business — has been compared to Zohran Mamdani, the charismatic left-wing outsider who became mayor of New York.
Still, the Greens during the campaign appeared to prefer backing a coalition with Die Linke over the other obvious possibility of joining with the conservative CDU. The election win by the Die Linke, at about 25% according to exit polls, was a historic first for Berlin and dealt a blow to the centre-right CDU of embattled Chancellor Friedrich Merz, which came second with about 20%. The SPD chose to break with a left-wing coalition after the previous election in 2023 and is currently junior partners with the CDU.
In order to govern, however, Eralp must now convince other parties — likely the centre-left SPD and the Greens — to join her in a so-called “red-red-green coalition”.
