Clashes erupt as far-right AfD states aim to govern Germany

ESSEN, Germany - The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) declared its ambition to rise to power in Germany as its party congress kicked off on June 29 amid clashes between hooded demonstrators and police, just weeks after it scored record European Union election results.

About 1,000 policemen were deployed in the western city of Essen, where demonstration organisers said 50,000 protesters marched towards the congress. The police have not yet provided figures.

“We want to govern, first in the east (of Germany), then in the west, then at federal level,” Mr Tino Chrupalla, co-president of the AfD, told around 600 delegates of the two-day meeting, which started half an hour late due to street blockades.

The police said that two officers had to be hospitalised following attacks by protesters.

“Unknown assailants kicked two police officers in the head” and continued to “hit them while they were on the ground”, said the police of North Westphalia, where Essen is located.

Seven officers were also slightly injured in the same attack near the Grugahalle hall. The perpetrators fled the scene.

The police said earlier that they had used pepper spray and batons, and eleven officers were injured in a separate incident.

“Several disruptive violent actions occurred in the Ruettenscheld quarter. Demonstrators, some of them hooded, attacked security forces. Several arrests were made,” they said on social media platform X.

A top regional official had warned that “potentially violent far-left troublemakers” could be among the protesters.

Adding to the headache of security forces is the Euro 2024 football tournament, with the last 16 clash between hosts Germany and Denmark taking place on June 29 in Dortmund – not far from Essen.

In early June, AfD notched up its best EU election result since its creation in 2013, winning 16 per cent of the vote to take second place.

Mr Chrupalla praised the party’s progress at a local level and its strong EU election result.

It was behind the main conservative CDU-CSU opposition bloc, but ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, which is in power at the head of a troubled three-party coalition.

‘Here to stay’

The AfD congress comes ahead of three key elections in September in states that once formed part of communist East Germany, and where the AfD has been topping opinion polls.

“We are here, and we will stay,” said party co-president Alice Weidel, opening the congress and drawing sustained applause.

Both Ms Weidel and Mr Chrupalla were re-elected to lead the party for another two years.

“We have the right, like all political parties – to hold a congress,” she added.

Buoyed by a surge in immigration and a weak performance by Europe’s top economy, the party hit as high as 22 per cent in opinion polls in January. However, its support faltered amid a welter of scandals that mainly implicated its top EU election candidate, Mr Maximilian Krah.

Tainted EU candidate

“I believe that the party has learnt a lot in recent months and will be very careful when we put forward leading candidates in the future,” Ms Weidel told the Politico news outlet on June 27.

Mr Krah initially faced allegations of suspicious links to Russia and China. He then sparked widespread anger by telling an Italian newspaper that not every member of the Nazis’ notorious SS was “automatically a criminal”.

The comments prompted the AfD’s expulsion from its far-right group, Identity and Democracy (ID), in the European Parliament, in which France’s National Rally (RN) and Italy’s League had been its partners.

While the AfD has sought to shift the blame for all its recent woes onto Mr Krah, there were signs of problems even before.

The RN had already distanced itself from the AfD after reports emerged in January that the German party had discussed the expulsion of immigrants and “non-assimilated” citizens at a meeting with extremists. The reports caused shock in Germany and triggered weeks of mass protests.

Following the EU polls, the AfD ejected Mr Krah from the delegation it sends to Brussels, but the ID group does not seem ready to re-admit it, leaving the party searching for new partners. AFP