Berlin Left: Eralp expects clear yes to coalition talks on Saturday
Ahead of the Left's party conference on 31 October, lead candidate Elif Eralp expects a large majority for a red-green-red coalition. She remains firm on the Emde case – and the group currently counts just 44 members.
Archive image · Photo: Sandro Halank, Wikimedia Commons / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Berlin's Left Party faces its next milestone on the way to the Red Town Hall. Left lead candidate Elif Eralp expects the state party conference on Saturday, 31 October, to approve coalition talks with the SPD and Greens "by a large majority", she told the Berliner Morgenpost. The SPD and Greens have already agreed; negotiations could start in early November. Eralp described the socialisation of large housing portfolios as "firmly agreed".
In the dispute over MP Vanessa Emde, who had distanced herself in an Instagram video from the group's declaration on Israel's right to exist and criticised the party leadership, Eralp reiterated that there was "no common working basis" with her. The group recently postponed a decision on Emde. The parliamentary administration also currently counts 44 rather than 45 Left MPs: 22-year-old Asya Senyüz from Tempelhof-Schöneberg is listed as unaffiliated; she has not yet signed the group's declaration on antisemitism and Israel's right to exist, which a party spokesperson attributed to illness.
This does not change the arithmetic: together, the Left, Greens and SPD hold a majority in the 153-seat House of Representatives. The SPD leadership has already launched a member vote on a future coalition agreement; the Left plans a binding member vote, the Greens a digital poll followed by a state delegates' conference.