dpa
Essen, Germany
Members of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) gathered in the western city of Essen for a two-day party congress, as huge crowds of protesters clashed with a massive contingent of police outside the venue.
The AfD is coming off a second-place finish in the European Parliament elections earlier this month, and is gearing up for state parliamentary elections in three eastern German states where the anti-immigrant and eurosceptic party appears to have an edge in the polls.
“We are number one in the east,” AfD co-chairman Tino Chrupalla declared to delegates on Saturday. “We want to win these elections, and we want to expand and maintain this position.”
AfD co-chairwoman Alice Weidel attacked Germany’s centre-left coalition government, the country’s domestic security services and recent reforms to Germany’s citizenship law in a speech to nearly 600 delegates in the city’s Grugahalle indoor arena.
She claimed the country has “degenerated into a pony farm” and warned that “Germany will do away with itself if we don’t get our act together and finally put an end to this woke hippie madness.”
Weidel received loud applause from AfD members when she said that it was in Germany and Europe’s interests “that Ukraine does not belong to the European Union and to Europe.”
Weidel also lobbed criticism at Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has said there are “irreconcilable differences” between her far-right Brothers of Italy party and the AfD, as well as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, a member of Germany’s centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU).
Two more years for AfD’s leaders Chrupalla and Weidel were both re-elected to another two-year term as co-leaders of the party on Saturday afternoon, with both facing no opposition and receiving large majorities from the delegates.
Chrupalla received 82.72% of the vote, a significantly better result than at the last party conference two years ago, when he received only 53.4% from AfD delegates.
“I’m really a bit overwhelmed,” Chrupalla said after his election.
