The far right defeated in 'multikulti' Berlin 

Elif Eralp: 'Germany's Zohran Mamdani' who vows to be a mayor for all Berliners | Germany | The Guardian

In the Berlin state election 20 September, the left party die Linke led by Elif Eralp, a daughter of Turkish immigrants, won more than a quarter of the vote. On winning, Eralp said: ´people like me are not actually supposed to become mayor of this country´. Parallels have been drawn to Zoran Mamdani the mayor of New York, with a focus on cost of living and affordable housing.

Surprisingly little attention has been given to the elections in Berlin with a population of nearly 4 million where more than 40% have immigrant backgrounds. Global media focused on far-right victories in Saxony Anhalt were the AfD won by 43.8 % and elected its first radical-right speaker since the nazi era. In Mecklenburg Western - Pomerania the far right won 38% and the mainstream conservatives lost its seats due to a vote lower than 5% which is the threshold for members entering parliament. Both federal states have low levels of immigration, ageing populations and a total of 2.6 million inhabitants. The AfD campaigned on immigration, crime and repatriation fuelled by the tech giants and replacement theory. Elon Musk spoke at the launch of the party´s national campaign in 2025.

Under these circumstances the massive gains by the left in Berlin seems more of a surprise than the successes of the far right in two small federal states where they did not manage to get a majority in parliament.

Things are getting difficult for the Chancellor Friedrich Merz who has largely copied AfD´s rhetoric immigration. He still sticks to the strategy of using a ´firewall´ trying to exclude the AfD from high office by forming coalitions and alliances with other so-called mainstream parties. He was not the only one who was shocked at the election of a speaker from the AfD 6 October which led to protests across Germany. The election of the speaker was by secret ballot and could not have happened without votes from CDU lawmakers. The chancellor alleged the election was not compatible with CDU policy and stressed that the AfD is classified as extremist by the domestic intelligence agency. According to the office for the protection of the constitution the AfD should therefore be banned in three states. Instead, the party seems to have succeeded in becoming an acceptable party, much because the mainstream has legitimised their anti-immigration agenda.

There is more than immigration to the AfD´s party programme, however. It has promised cuts to integration and democracy promotion programmes. Start repatriation of not only immigrants but of people born in Germany and German passport holders with an immigrant family background, unless they have ´integrated´ well. They plan to introduce compulsory work for asylum seekers, ban ´unpatriotic´ and degenerate art´, introduce routine singing of the national anthem at school assemblies, exclude refugee children and children with disabilities from mainstream schools, downplay the significance of the Nazi era in the curriculum. Hans Thomas Tillschneider of the AfD had long promised more ´more Bismark and less Hitler´ in schools in Saxony Anhalt if the party came to power.

Austerity and cuts to the public sector introduced by the mainstream have eroded equal access to education over decades with lack of qualified teachers and huge classes. Integration of children with disabilities and refugee children in conventional schools is not something the AfD started, says retired schoolteacher Britta Pörksen on the phone from Bielefeld. The AfD says out loud what the mainstream just made happen by defunding. It is of great concern though how the AfD has started making lists of asylum seeker children and children with disabilities: ´just like the Nazis´ says Pörksen.

10 years after Angela Merkel opened Germany´s borders to more than a million refugees and defiantly said to her opponents: ´wir schaffen das` -´we will manage this´, most will agree that they did indeed manage. The far right and the media focus on problems rather than the success integration brought to an ageing Germany in need of labour. The government was disappointed over lower skills in the refugee population than expected but they are very much in need and ´the German Health sector will collapse without Syrian doctors´ says GP Anja Von Buch. If the far right got it their way they would rob the country of any dignity left and of skilled workers that keeps the country functioning.