On election night, as the far right rose nationwide, Die Linke made crucial gains in the capital. But its supporters see the hard road ahead

Will democracy still prevail in the west in a decade? It was certainly a question weighing on the minds of the hundreds of Die Linke supporters crammed into a former film studio overlooking Berlin’s Tempelhof airport last weekend. They were gathered to listen to the results of Germany’s election – and their reactions were mixed. The far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) had just doubled its support in federal elections, securing a fifth of the vote, yet Die Linke came top in the capital, albeit with 21% of the vote. They cheered, hugged, kissed and cried.

We were in Neukölln, a diverse neighbourhood of south-eastern Berlin, and the triumphant candidate was Ferat Koçak, a charismatic Kurdish-German leftist. His grassroots campaign knocked on every door in the district – not unusual in the UK and US, but a novelty in Germany. “For several years, the left has been in a kind of shocked paralysis about what to do with the rising right,” explained 30-year-old activist Isabelle: grassroots campaigning, she believes, brought the left out of its bubble.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist