As wars and trade conflicts have caused prices to skyrocket, the issue of affordability has increasingly affected people across the world. In rural areas, feelings of anger have been largely directed at rising gas and grocery prices, as the reliance on cars makes citizens pay extra attention to the price of fuel. In cities like Berlin or New York, grocery prices are just as relevant, but rising costs are most noticeable through rent prices.
Unlike gas prices, where global politics play a major role, the causes of rising rents in large cities can be attributed to various factors. A globally driven cause is private, profit-seeking investment groups who own large amounts of apartment buildings and are, therefore, both willing and capable of systematically driving up rents. A local, rather political reason is the lack of rent-controlled apartment buildings, especially in city centers. Another reason is gentrification, which is caused by well-off people moving into inner-city neighborhoods for the “local experience,” thereby displacing working-class residents.
The people of New York decided earlier this year that the person they most trusted to decrease the cost of living is Zohran Mamdani, a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). The Uganda-born, Muslim candidate ran on promises of freezing rent, faster and cheaper public transport, universal childcare as well as city-owned grocery stores. He also proposed increasing taxes on rich citizens.
Just a few months later, the craze for a leftist mayor crossed the Atlantic and reached the German capital Berlin. The party “Die Linke” (The Left) recently won the Berlin mayoral election with 25.7% of the votes cast, way ahead of the second-placed CDU which came in at 18.8%. The latter is currently running the city in a coalition with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD). According to exit polls, up to 42% of voters in Berlin decided their vote based on a party's plans to lower rent costs, with 37% of voters believing that Die Linke had the best plans to do so.
From Zohran Mamdani to Elif Eralp
The mayoral candidate for Die Linke is Elif Eralp, a 45-year-old daughter of Turkish immigrants and mother of two. The parallels to Mamdani are striking: both have a migration background, both are democratic socialists, and both ran campaigns on making their cities affordable again. Elif Eralp and Die Linke, however, explicitly took a page out of Mamdani’s playbook and modelled their campaign after his, focusing on lowering rents, cheaper public transport, and cleaner neighborhoods. In fact, her campaign slogan was “Making Berlin Affordable.”
During his electoral campaign, Mamdani faced a fierce opposition, both in the Democratic primary and in the general election. A major reason for this opposition was Mamdani’s promise to tax the rich, his critique of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, as well as his immigrant background and Muslim faith, which was extensively used for fear-mongering. After the Berlin election, Eralp is confronted with similar hostility – also because of her party’s economic policies, her immigrant background, and the Left Party’s critique of Israel’s government.
The similarities go even further. Both campaigns were not driven by “big money” but by “people’s power ": thousands of enthusiastic young activists knocking hundreds of thousands of doors, and both campaigns outdid their opponents with their savvy social media campaigns.
There is a significant difference, however, in how the cities’ political systems work: While in the US electoral system, mayors are elected directly, in Germany people vote for a party. The share of votes is then translated into the party’s strength in the city council, which elects the mayor. This means even though Die Linke came out way ahead of the other parties, it still needs coalition partners in order to elect Eralp and to govern the city for the next five years.
Before the election, the “left camp” of Die Linke, SPD, and Greens was poised to form a coalition government, as they had already done between 2016 and 2023. Since the election on September 20, however, there has been a staunch effort by a variety of mostly right-leaning groups, newspapers, and business lobbyists to prevent Eralp from being elected mayor. This campaign against Eralp and Die Linke revolves around two arguments: First, the Left Party’s critique of Israel, which in the German political context is almost unheard of (Germany has been Israel’s second-closest ally after the US); and second, Die Linke’s plan to expropriate the city’s largest real estate companies (such as Vonovia SE), which own more than 3,000 apartments in the city each.
This plan goes back to a popular vote in 2021, when a large majority of voters (59%) approved the policy measure taking said apartments, around 220,000 in total, out of the hands of private corporations and turning them into publicly owned housing associations. The argument behind this move is that because currently a large chunk of rents is handed out to shareholders, rents could be lowered and publicly controlled.
Counterarguments include the anticipated costs. According to German law, to expropriate anything, you need to financially compensate the expropriated. How much the entire project would cost is unclear, as courts would need to finally set the compensation level.
Expropriation is not the only thing Die Linke wants to do in order to fight rising rents and “make Berlin affordable.” Creating a cap on rent – with a task force alongside it to ensure landlords don’t illegally charge too much rent – has also been a reason for the party’s popularity with voters. On the federal level, Die Linke has already created an App where renters can check if the rent they pay is illegal, and whether the cost of utilities is too high. Furthermore, Die Linke also wants the construction of new affordable (social) housing.
If it seems like Die Linke’s campaign is very rent-price centric, it’s because it’s such a prominent issue in the city. As in New York and many other large cities across the Western world, young people in Berlin can’t afford to move out of their parents’ apartments, lower- and middle-class families are getting priced out of neighborhoods they have lived in for decades, and there just aren’t enough rent-stabilized apartments.
Will Elif Eralp prevail?
The negotiating skills of Eralp and her colleagues will now be put to the test. As the SPD so far has been skeptical on the issue of expropriation, it looks like we’re heading towards a standoff between the two parties.
If no coalition agreement can be reached, the second-placed party, the conservative CDU, would have a chance at forming a coalition with the SPD and the Greens – which has already been labelled a “coalition of losers” since each of the three parties lost significantly. This
move would bear a huge risk, as the current city government of CDU and SPD has clearly been voted out of office. Just taking in the Greens carries a heavy weight for both SPD and Greens, as voters have clearly voiced their preference for a center-left coalition.
Whether plans to expropriate large real estate corporations are included or not, a coalition agreement needs to be reached. A government led by the CDU would signal a continuation of the political course which has made the party (as well as the SPD) so unpopular in the first place. Overpriced rents, lobby-driven politics and a political style which continues to stray further and further from the lower- and middle class have worn out voters over the past years.
Die Linke in Berlin profited from this by focusing on a few core issues with concrete promises that are within reach. Eralp has, much like Mamdani, managed to build on a growing feeling of distrust towards the establishment.
As promises of affordability made by CDU and SPD have proven to remain empty ones, voters want a change in strategy and face. International media coverage and social platforms have made it easier to see how different policy models work around the world and put it on display. In this case, the grass is greener in New York City, and Berliners have made it clear that they want similar policies. This is what Elif Eralp understood.
Die Linke could be a fresh start for Berlin and a chance to show its citizens that there are still politicians who care about regular people. At the same time, it is clear that if the Left Party is going to lead the new city government, they are doomed to deliver.
