Bundestag election: The new Left

The Left Party is entering the new Bundestag with 62 representatives, an impressive number. It is also noteworthy that the party has won six direct mandates, including for the first time a constituency that is not in the territory of the former GDR. Ferat Koçak surprisingly won in the Berlin district of Neukölln after an election campaign in which he and his supporters knocked on thousands of doors, in which he was constantly visible on the streets as an activist and performer, and in which he caused a sensation with ever new videos on social media.

Koçak is the grandson of Kurdish immigrants who came to the country as guest workers. The graduate economist has long been active in Berlin politics, including as an activist against racism and fascism. This has repeatedly made him a target for right-wing circles. In 2018, an arson attack was carried out on his family's house in South Neukölln, which he and his family say was only lucky to survive without physical injury. He did not let this slow down his activism.

Seven years after the attack, he was elected to the Bundestag. "We have made damn history here today," he shouted at his election party on Sunday. Koçak is undoubtedly part of the left wing of the Left Party, and one can assume that he will be an uncomfortable spirit in a party that recently praised itself, with some justification, for presenting such a united front.

After the departure of Sahra Wagenknecht and some of her followers a year ago, the Left Party lost its parliamentary group status in the Bundestag and shrank to a so-called group. In smaller units, it is usually easier to present a united front. One challenge of the new size in the Bundestag will be to maintain this unity, even if combative minds like Koçak are now part of the parliamentary group.

Heidi Reichinnek, the party's co-top candidate, said on Monday: "These are luxury problems that I am looking forward to." Together with party leaders Jan van Aken and Ines Schwerdtner, she appeared at the federal press conference in Berlin, for obvious reasons in a much better mood than Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock, who had given information immediately before the Left Party.

Schwerdtner was delighted to report that she had won the direct mandate in the Berlin constituency of Lichtenberg, which was particularly satisfying for her because she had prevailed against AfD politician Beatrix von Storch. She had been "chased out of the court," said Schwerdtner happily. That was not entirely true, however, because von Storch is entering parliament via the state list.

Habeck and Baerbock's bad mood is also due to the fact that the Left Party has taken away a Green stronghold from them, the Berlin constituency of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg-Prenzlauer Berg East. Pascal Meiser, who already sat in the Bundestag from 2017 to 2024 and thus, unlike many of the new MPs, brings experience to the parliamentary group, prevailed there. Gregor Gysi won a fourth direct mandate in Berlin, comfortably winning his constituency of Treptow-Köpenick. The Left Party has become the strongest party in Berlin with 19.9 percent of the vote.

The other direct mandates were won by Bodo Ramelow in Erfurt and Sören Pellmann in Leipzig. Dietmar Bartsch, who entered the election campaign with Gysi and Ramelow on the "Mission Silverlocke", missed the direct mandate in Rostock, but still entered the Bundestag via the list. The AfD candidate Steffi Burmeister, who won in Rostock, was left out due to the electoral reform, according to which not all winners of a constituency automatically enter parliament.