According to the agenda, there is only a debate about the consequences of the attack on Berlin’s power grid at the beginning of January and the subsequent four-day power outage in the southwest of the capital. In fact, the House of Representatives, the Berlin state parliament, is experiencing the unofficial start of the election campaign for September 20th this Thursday. Because the focus this Thursday is obviously not on the search for perpetrators or the consequences of the power outage. It’s primarily about the man who would like to continue to be Prime Minister for the CDU even after the Berlin election in around eight months – or, as they say in Berlin: Governing Mayor.
The head of the Green parliamentary group, Werner Graf, starts the exchange of blows His party’s leading candidate is. On that Saturday almost two weeks ago, not only did the power fail, “the government also had a blackout,” criticizes Graf. Berlin’s population has the right to a head of government who is “visible, clear and honest”. From Graf’s point of view, Wegner did not fulfill all of this.
Wegner has been under fire since it was revealed that he played an hour of tennis on the first day of the blackout, but gave the impression to the outside world that he had locked himself in his office at home and worked throughout to organize relief efforts and repair the power grid. The failure, according to the black-red state government, a left-wing terrorist attack, initially affected 45,000 households in southwest Berlin and fell into the strongest period of frost in a long time.
The fact that it’s not just about error analysis, but also about collecting points for the election can be clearly seen from who goes to the podium for the Left Party. The woman in the white turtleneck sweater is not the parliamentary group leader who would now speak according to the usual meeting procedure. Instead, the group had already announced that Wegner would be answered by Elif Eralp, the top candidate nominated in November.
Eralp: “Nothing about this attack is left-wing”
“Perpetrator at the desk,” shouts an AfD MP as the 44-year-old goes to the microphone, for which there will later be a call to order. Wegner had previously accused the Left Party and the Greens of not speaking of a left-wing terrorist attack as he did and of not distancing themselves from left-wing extremists.
While Green parliamentary group leader Graf then spoke of a “left-wing terrorist attack”, that has not been heard from Eralp. “There is nothing left-wing about this attack, regardless of where the perpetrators are located,” she says. She accuses Wegner of a lack of empathy and “incredible callousness,” who sits in the state government’s line just a few meters from the lectern.
This is exactly the place Eralp wants to sit in the fall. Since last summer, her Left Party has been the strongest force in the left camp in surveys; In terms of membership strength, your party will probably be at the top in Berlin in a few weeks. In the most recent survey in mid-November, Wegner’s CDU’s lead had shrunk to 3 percentage points; a red-green-red coalition and a governing mayor from the Left Party would be possible given the result. After Bodo Ramelow in Thuringia, it would only be the second time nationwide that the Left has been at the head of a federal state.
Whether this happens, however, will depend less on how much the CDU follows Wegner’s tennis game and whether the Left Party is ultimately ahead of it. What is crucial is whether the SPD and the Greens would be willing to form a coalition under Eralp’s leadership. It is true that for many years we have heard from leaders of both parties that they are more emotionally close to the Left than to the CDU.
The changed Left Party is seen by many as a “black box”
But the big change in the Berlin Left, with membership doubling within 12 months and new leadership, makes both potential coalition partners doubt who they are actually dealing with. After a scandal about dealing with anti-Semitism at the state party conference at the end of 2024 Several former government members and influential faces had left the Berlin Left Party. Particularly among the Greens, doubts remain as to whether the current party actually clearly distances itself from left-wing anti-Semitism. There is still talk of the Left Party as a “black box”.
At the SPD, on the other hand, its top candidate Steffen Krach has decided that with him there will be no expropriation of apartments. The future left-wing faction will probably include a leading figure in a successful referendum in 2021, who told the taz Wednesday very clearly: There will be no government participation without expropriation.
All of this was still more than eight months in the future, when top candidate Eralp said on Thursday, referring to the current head of government: “Berlin cannot afford a Wegner quixotic in times of crisis.” She doesn’t go so far as to directly demand his resignation. This morning, in the direction of Wegner, this can only be heard from the AfD: “If you have an ounce of decency, you should draw the consequences.”