The lurch to the right scares me

As the world's richest person meddles on behalf of the far right in the German election campaign, a leftist party calling for billionaires to be taxed out of existence has risen from the ashes in the race's final stretch.

- Deborah Cole

The far-left Die Linke, the successor to the East German communists who built the Berlin Wall and who months ago were on life support after an internal schism, has had a surprise resurgence before the 23 February vote.

Die Linke is attracting strong support from women and young voters with its call for "democratic socialism" marked by affordable housing, income equality, climate protection and pacifism.

One of its rising stars, the MP Heidi Reichinnek, went viral on social media eviscerating the conservative frontrunner, Friedrich Merz, in parliament for accepting support from the far right for his hardline immigration proposals.

"You've made yourself an accomplice and today you've changed this country for the worse," Reichinnek, her forearm decorated with a tattoo of the revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg, said in a rousing speech as the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader tried to laugh off the attack.

With Elon Musk and the US vice-president, JD Vance, openly courting the anti-immigrant, antiIslam Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the German election campaign has undergone a dizzying scramble of traditional alliances.