Berlin’s Linke victory and the CDU’s eastern collapse redraw German politics

Die Linke won Berlin with roughly a quarter of the vote, ahead of the CDU on about 19%, the AfD on 16% and the SPD on just over 12%. Elif Eralp, the daughter of Turkish leftists who fled the 1980 coup, could become the city’s first Linke mayor. Her defining promise is to implement Berlin’s 2021 referendum calling for about 220,000 homes held by large private landlords to enter public ownership.

The mandate is politically strong but operationally unsettled. SPD estimates have put compensation near €20bn, and a recent poll found only 37% still supporting expropriation. Eralp also needs coalition partners: the SPD and Greens are open to talks, while the Greens want a response to allegations of antisemitism inside parts of the party. The vote therefore makes housing the centre of coalition negotiations without guaranteeing that the referendum will be implemented.

The same election night was catastrophic for the CDU in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. It received 4.9%, its worst postwar result in any state and just below the threshold for representation. The AfD led on 38.2%, narrowly ahead of the SPD on 35.5%. Friedrich Merz called the result a disaster and said he would remain chancellor, but the absence of an agreed successor does not remove the pressure: the CDU is simultaneously losing younger urban renters to the left and protest voters in the east to the far right.

The outcomes are not one national swing. Berlin’s revolt concerns rent, ownership and municipal failure; Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s combines regional decline, migration and estrangement from Berlin. Together they show a shrinking space for a centre that promises competent continuity but cannot make housing, local services or eastern representation feel materially different.