Berlin's Potential Left-Led Coalition Faces Relentless Media and Political Campaign

Writing in the taz on 30 October 2026, journalist Daniel Bax argues that a relentless campaign by German media and politicians against a potential Red-Green-Red (Rot-Grün-Rot) coalition in Berlin — involving the Left Party, the Greens, and the SPD — says more about German journalism than about the Left Party itself. Berlin SPD chief Steffen Krach appeared on the Markus Lanz programme and made the exclusion of backbencher Vanessa Emde from the Left's parliamentary group a condition for coalition. Critics have also seized on photos of Left politicians with a Palestinian pensioner and activist suspected of Hamas sympathies, and on a staffer in Left Party top candidate Elif Eralp's office accidentally forwarding a confidential Word document to Der Spiegel. The Bild-Zeitung, NIUS, the Berliner Tagesspiegel, and politicians from the CDU, CSU, and SPD had warned against the coalition even before the election — yet Berlin voters handed the Left Party a landslide, with the party clearly outpacing the CDU and winning every second vote in some districts. Bax singles out ARD presenter Jörg Thadeusz, who compared a Left coalition to a betrayal of Auschwitz victims, and Welt columnist Harald Martenstein for making sexist remarks about female Left politicians. Bax concludes that critics will keep finding pretexts until Rot-Grün-Rot is brought down, meaning no concession the Left makes will ever be deemed sufficient.