RIESA, Germany (AFP) — The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party set out a radical program 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.
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 12 p.m., the party’s 600-odd delegates approved co-leader Alice Weidel as candidate for chancellor by acclamation ahead of the general election on 23 February.
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 traveling without documents” as well as “large-scale repatriations.”
“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.
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.