Source: Entertainment Weekly

Thousands protested against Germany’s far-right AfD and blocked roads to its annual conference in the eastern city of Erfurt on ​Saturday, where the party re-elected the two leaders who have overseen its rise as a national force.

Protesters from unions, civil society groups and ‌left-wing parties gathered as large numbers of police, including reinforcements from across Germany, were deployed ahead of the AfD’s two-day conference. AfD stands for Alternative for Germany.

Watched by police in riot gear, protesters sat in rows to block highways and roads leading to the convention centre where the meeting is being held. Police estimated around 15,000 people joined demonstrations in and around the eastern city.

The AfD ​launched the event by re-electing party chiefs Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, under whose leadership the AfD has surged to the top of national opinion ​polls ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives.

The opening speeches mocked and lambasted the protesters as anti-democratic. They revelled in the AfD’s rise ⁠that could see the party taking power in regional elections this year for the first time, while painting their mainstream rivals as tired, out of touch and ​leading Germany into decline.

The conference comes ahead of elections in the eastern states of Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in September that the AfD hopes will help pave the way for success at national level.

“We will govern. First at a regional level, then at national level,” Chrupalla told the conference in a speech that sought to stress party unity.

Both Chrupalla, a trained painter and varnisher from the eastern state of Saxony, and Weidel, a former Goldman Sachs analyst from western Germany, were re-elected with no opposition, but Chrupalla’s score of 70% was well ​below the 81% he secured at the ​last vote two years ago.

A proponent ⁠of halting military aid to Ukraine, Chrupalla has called for a reset in relations between Berlin and Moscow, which have become openly hostile over the war in Ukraine.

Formed more than a decade ago, the AfD has deployed a mix of nationalist rhetoric, calls ​for tougher immigration policies and appeals to voters frustrated with successive governments and years of economic stagnation.

“Criminals and illegal migrants ​have no place in ⁠Germany any more,” Weidel said. “We will deport them rigorously, because our country deserves better.”

Opponents accuse the AfD of promoting racist policies and attitudes incompatible with Germany’s democratic values, and say it would threaten the country’s constitutional order.

Mainstream parties have ruled out any cooperation, under a so-called “firewall” strategy designed to isolate the party and keep it out of coalition governments.

AfD leaders deny ⁠opposing Germany’s ​democratic foundations and earlier this year won a court injunction ordering the domestic intelligence service to suspend a ​previous classification of the party as “extremist”.

Recent polls put AfD support as high as 29%, compared with around 22% for Merz’s CDU/CSU conservatives.

Its strongest support comes from the former communist east, where surveys show the highest ​levels of voter disillusionment with the traditional party system.