German far-right leader calls protestors ‘red-painted Nazis’ ahead of elections | World News


The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party set out a radical programme on Saturday at a party congress ahead of next month’s snap general election as thousands of protesters took to the streets to voice their opposition to the party.

German far-right leader calls protestors ‘red-painted Nazis’ ahead of elections | World News
AfD national chairwoman Alice Weidel (AP)

Demonstrators shouting “No to Nazis” outside the venue in the eastern town of Riesa succeeded in delaying the start of the congress by around two hours.

Once it got underway just after 12pm (1100 GMT) the party’s 600-odd delegates approved co-leader Alice Weidel as candidate for chancellor by acclamation ahead of the general election on February 23.

Also Read: Germany says Elon Musk ‘trying to influence the federal election’

In a fiery speech to the hall afterwards Weidel condemned the protestors outside as “a left-wing mob” and “red-painted Nazis” before going on to present her “plan for the future” for Germany.

She said the first 100 days of a government containing the AfD would see the “total closing of Germany’s borders and the turning back anyone travelling without documents” as well as “large-scale repatriations”.

Also Read: German visa for Indian students: Can you bring your family along? Your important queries answered

“I say to you quite honestly, if this must be called remigration, then let it be called remigration,” she said.

‘Windmills of shame’

Turning to energy policy Weidel advocated a return to nuclear energy and more coal power stations, as well as relaunching the Nord Stream pipelines for Russian gas.

In keeping with the AfD’s denial of climate science, Weidel also attacked efforts to promote renewable energy.

She branded wind turbines “windmills of shame” and promised to tear them all down.

Also Read: ‘Hitler was a communist’: Elon Musk and Alice Weidel’s remarks on X livestream trigger backlash

The AfD is currently in second place in opinion polls, averaging 20 percent, although one survey on Saturday eagerly seized on by the party gave them 22 percent.

The conservative CDU/CSU is leading at 31 percent while Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats are fighting it out for third place with their Green coalition partners on 15 and 14 percent respectively.

Weidel in her speech bashed the CDU/CSU, branding them a “party of cheats” and saying her goal was to overtake them.

The congress caps an eventful week for Weidel, who on Thursday was hosted by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a key Donald Trump ally, for a wide-ranging livestream on his X social media platform.

Musk also boosted the livestream of Saturday’s congress by sharing it on his own X account, helping it gain a worldwide audience of more than four million as of the early evening.

The AfD has also been buoyed by events in Austria in recent days, where the far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) has been invited to try to form a government with the conservative People’s Party (OeVP).

So far all of Germany’s other parties, including the CSU/CDU, have ruled out working with the AfD.

– Heated debates ahead –

Outside the congress venue, protestors braved the cold to shout slogans such as “No to Nazis”.

Police said they numbered at least 8,000 while organisers put the number at more than 12,000.

Among them was Julia, who declined to give her last name but said she wanted to turn out to oppose a party that represented “exclusion, discrimination and hatred”.

“We want to show very clearly that we are the majority, that we are in favour of open borders and solidarity in society,” she told AFP.

Dorothea, part of the Omas Gegen Rechts (“Grannies Against The Far-Right”) protest movement, called the AfD “merciless downfall for Germany”.

While doubting she and her fellow protestors could reach “those in the AFD bubble”, she hoped they could get through to “non voters and the undecided”.

Earlier on Saturday demonstrators had tried to breach police cordons with protest organisers accusing the police of using violence and pepper spray.

Police said that six officers had suffered minor injuries.

The far-left Die Linke party complained that one of its regional members of parliament who was observing the protests was knocked unconscious by a blow to the face from police.

The head of the region’s police force apologised for the incident and said it was being investigated.

Observers are expecting heated debates over some points of the AfD’s programme as the party congress continues on Sunday.

Those include party leadership plans to replace its Junge Alternative (“Young Alternative”) youth wing, which has been classified an extremist group by intelligence services.

bur-jsk/gv

X



Source link

Latest articles

Related articles

Discover more from Technology Tangle

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading

0