Memedani model: Meet the daughter of refugees from Turkey who conquered Berlin

Elif Erlap, chairwoman of the German left-wing party "Die Linke", achieved a historic victory in the Berlin elections. Meet the 45-year-old leader, daughter of immigrants from Turkey, who conquered Berlin following the model of Zohran Mamdani in New York.

Elif Erlap, chairwoman of the German left-wing party "Die Linke", achieved a historic victory in the elections for the Berlin House of Representatives. Erlap's campaign, the 45-year-old daughter of political refugees from Turkey, focused primarily on the city's housing crisis. The party promised to promote the transfer to public ownership of more than 200,000 apartments held by large real estate corporations, a move based on the results of a 2021 referendum. Erlap was born in Munich in 1981, months after her parents fled Turkey following the 1980 military coup. Both parents were left-wing and trade union activists who were imprisoned in Turkey. The family sought asylum with the help of Amnesty International. Erlap studied law in Hamburg, worked with the UN Refugee Agency, and joined Die Linke less than a decade ago. In 2021, she was elected to the Berlin parliament. Her positions on Israel are complex: she stated that Israel has a right to exist, condemned calls for violence against Israel at an election event, and criticized an anti-Zionist decision by her party in Lower Saxony because it ignored the Hamas massacre on October 7. At the same time, she is critical of Israel's policy in Gaza, supports a sister city alliance between Berlin and Ramallah, and presented a five-point plan to combat antisemitism. Her campaign was compared to that of Zohran Mamdani in New York, and even adopted part of the New York formula: a focus on the cost of living and housing, a door-to-door campaign, use of social media, and branding around her first name.