Berlin's Left in campaign blunder as election ad shows wrong town hall

Germany's The Left is hoping to install lead candidate Elif Eralp as its first mayor of Berlin in Sunday's election, but some of the hard-left party's followers appear to be uncertain about the appearance of the capital's famous Red Town Hall. 

A campaign post on Eralp's Instagram account about the upcoming vote showed a red-brick building purporting to be the Rotes Rathaus, one of the many architectural gems in central Berlin and the seat of the state government.

Eagle-eyed observers pointed out that the building was in fact the Main City Hall in Gdańsk, which now hosts the Polish city's local history museum. 

"Unfortunately, when people have been working at a relentless pace for months, annoying mistakes do sometimes happen," The Left told dpa. "It’s good that so many people were paying attention and brought this to our attention."

The post has since been taken down, but The Left will be hoping the blunder does not affect its chances of leading the German capital for the first time. 

The Left - a successor to the socialist party that ruled the former East Germany - is polling around 20% in a three-horse race with the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). It could lead a coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens following Sunday's vote. 

Designed by the German architect Hermann Friedrich Waesemann, the Red Town Hall was built between 1861 and 1869 in the Neo-Renaissance style, according to the Berlin state website.