ELISSA NADWORNY, HOST:
Berlin is known as a cosmopolitan live-and-let-live city with liberal politics. But as voters head to the polls to elect a new mayor this weekend, the far–right Alternative for Germany Party is polling just a couple of percentage points behind the front-runners. Esme Nicholson reports.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (inaudible).
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ESME NICHOLSON, BYLINE: It's Saturday lunchtime in the leafy district of Charlottenburg in what was once West Berlin. Local, well-heeled residents forgo their usual stroll through the nearby farmers market to protest against the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which is holding its final rally.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in non-English language).
NICHOLSON: Sixty-year-old Elke Beyer says she's stunned that the far-right party has the audacity to turn up here, adding that in previous city elections, the AfD limited its campaign to the capital's outskirts.
ELKE BEYER: (Speaking German).
NICHOLSON: "The AfD is populist in a truly nasty way," she says. "It excludes and pits voters against each other, framing real issues as us-versus-them conflicts."
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NICHOLSON: A police cordon separates Beyer and the other protesters from the AfD supporters. Beyer says that if she could see past the officers' riot gear, she might spot a familiar face or two.
BEYER: (Speaking German).
NICHOLSON: "Many of my neighbors are increasingly anxious they'll be turfed out of their apartments," she says. "I understand why the AfD appeals because it exploits this fear." The AfD erroneously blames refugees and migrants for worsening the city's housing shortage.
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UNIDENTIFIED CANDIDATE: (Non-English language spoken).
NICHOLSON: Two AfD candidates recently filmed a walk through Neukolln, one of the capital's most diverse districts. Locals followed them, shouting at them to get out of the neighborhood. On camera, the candidates detailed to reporters how the party plans to, quote, "clean up the city" with its, quote, "remigration plan," something Chancellor Friedrich Merz called nothing short of ethnic cleansing in parliament last week.
Sociologist Ozgur Ozvatan says the AfD is being deliberately provocative.
OZGUR OZVATAN: (Speaking German).
NICHOLSON: "This was little more than a stunt to fuel a culture war," he says. "It's the AfD playing identity politics." Ozvatan says the AfD wants to make its presence felt.
OZVATAN: (Speaking German).
NICHOLSON: "Even here in Berlin, we're seeing the normalization of the far right," he says. "I see their posters everywhere in the city, and that is new." But he points out that this is Berlin, not Saxony-Anhalt, the state where the AfD won a landslide victory earlier this month. Here, two other parties are polling just ahead of the AfD, the conservative CDU and the left-wing Die Linke Party, whose candidate for mayor, Elif Eralp, pledges to make the city affordable again.
OZVATAN: (Speaking German)
NICHOLSON: "Elif Eralp resonates with voters because she understands that rents and food prices are not going to suddenly go down if every single immigrant is deported," he says.
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ELIF ERALP: (Non-English language spoken).
NICHOLSON: Eralp is pushing to introduce a rent cap and seize apartments owned by large corporate real estate developers. Here, she's addressing a crowd in Marzhan, a district of Soviet-era prefab apartment blocks on Berlin's eastern edge.
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ERALP: (Non-English language spoken).
NICHOLSON: Retired nurse Romy Arnold clutches a copy of the left-wing party's platform but says she's yet to decide on how she'll vote. She's frustrated by the mainstream party's refusal to govern with the AfD, adding that the party does well in this district.
ROMY ARNOLD: (Speaking German).
NICHOLSON: "Why shouldn't we work with the AfD?" she says, adding, "what's the use in calling them fascists and Nazis? Sure, they exist in the party, but surely we have to find some consensus."
Consensus is needed in a country where coalitions are the norm, but that norm is becoming increasingly elusive in a city with a history of division. For NPR News, I'm Esme Nicholson in Berlin.
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