World
BERLÍN Berlin’s Die Linke leadership keeps up pressure on lawmaker Vanessa Emde
Kerstin Wolter defended the call for the legislator to give up her seat and said she still hopes for a change in behavior. The dispute is also weighing on coalition talks in the German capital.
Berlin Die Linke leader Kerstin Wolter has defended the demand that lawmaker Vanessa Emde give up her mandate and said she still hopes Emde will change her conduct, according to remarks to RBB-Inforadio cited by Der Spiegel.
Wolter said she considers it self-evident to give Emde a chance to alter her behavior and become part of a constructive parliamentary team, but added that she currently sees no sign of that.
The party’s Berlin leadership had already urged Emde on Friday to return her seat. After a meeting of the regional executive, Wolter and Maximilian Schirmer said they no longer trust her, Der Spiegel reported.
Wolter defended that step and said Emde’s conduct at the state party convention last weekend was what pushed the conflict over the edge. According to Wolter, Emde was a delegate but did not take part in that role and instead attended a rally directed against Berlin’s Die Linke.
Emde was elected to the Berlin House of Representatives on September 20 and won a direct mandate in her Neukölln constituency with 46.2 percent of the first-vote result, according to Der Spiegel.
Her behavior has sparked debate for weeks. Among the accusations against her is that she has cast doubt on Israel’s right to exist. She also openly expressed solidarity with a controversial pro-Palestinian activist at a protest against her party leadership held on the sidelines of a Die Linke party gathering. According to the association democ, which monitors anti-democratic movements, that activist supports the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is classified as a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States.
After the September election, Die Linke has been seeking a coalition in the capital with the Greens and the SPD. According to Der Spiegel, those talks have been complicated, among other reasons, by antisemitism allegations involving individual Die Linke politicians, with Emde at the center of the dispute. The magazine added that despite a joint antisemitism declaration by the three potential partners, Emde has repeatedly made public statements understood as rejecting the State of Israel’s right to exist.
Sources
About this piece. Written by El Notero with AI assistance, from reporting published by the outlet cited above. El Notero did no original reporting on this story.
