Members of the anti-Islam, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany will gather for a party congress in Dresden on Saturday and Sunday, despite coronavirus restrictions, to finalise their strategy ahead of the general election on September 26th.

With Angela Merkel stepping down after 16 years as chancellor, the AfD’s “Merkel must go” slogan will need an overhaul.

The AfD caused a sensation in Germany’s last election in 2017 when it secured almost 13 percent of the vote, entering parliament for the first time as the largest opposition party.

But it has lost support as Germany reels from the coronavirus pandemic, and has lately been plagued by internal divisions, links to radical Covid-19 deniers and accusations of ties to neo-Nazi fringe groups.

Latest surveys have the party polling at between 10 and 12 percent, with Merkel’s CDU/CSU on around 27 percent and the resurgent Greens not far behind.

‘Corona dictatorship’

In key regional elections in the southern states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate in March, the AfD saw its support plunge by around a third.

The drop in support has coincided with AfD members courting controversy by joining anti-vaxxers and “Querdenker” (Lateral Thinkers) at various demonstrations against coronavirus restrictions.

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Parliamentary group co-leader Alexander Gauland has accused the government of “war propaganda” and seeking to establish a “corona dictatorship”.

During a violent mass protest in November, AfD members were accused of letting far-right activists into the Reichstag parliament building.

The party has also been hit by revelations that the government intends to place it under surveillance for posing a threat to democracy.

Media reports in March said the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) had classified the AfD as a “suspected case” of right-wing extremism, paving the way for intelligence agents to tap its communications and possibly use undercover informants.

The AfD is challenging the classification in emergency proceedings, accusing the BfV of not taking sufficient care to prevent the information from leaking to the press.

As well as finalising its manifesto at the Dresden conference, some of the party’s more right-wing members also want the AfD to decide who will lead it into the election campaign.

But party co-leader Joerg Meuthen, who represents the AfD’s more moderate wing, wants the decision to be made later by a vote among all party members.

The AfD has long been bitterly divided between those who support Meuthen and a more radical faction, known as The Wing, loyal to firebrand Bjoern Hoecke.

Pariah party

The AfD is likely to choose a two-person team to lead it into the election, with Meuthen’s co-president Tino Chrupalla considered the likely contender.

Many members would like to see him joined by economist and parliamentary group co-leader Alice Weidel, but Meuthen’s supporters would prefer the more moderate Joana Cotar.

Starting out as an anti-euro outfit in 2013, the AfD capitalised on public anger over Merkel’s 2015 decision to allow in a wave of asylum seekers from conflict-torn countries such as Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The hard-right party has often courted controversy by calling for Germany to stop atoning for its World War II crimes. Gauland once described the Nazi era as just “a speck of bird poo” on German history.

The AfD has “dramatically radicalised itself” in recent years, which has “divided the party in two”, political scientist Hajo Funke of Berlin’s Free University, who specialises in the far right, told AFP.

He noted a series of deadly right-wing extremist attacks against immigrants and Jews committed since 2019 had left the political far right “isolated” while the AfD had only managed to offer a “chaotic back-and-forth” in the face of the pandemic.

“For now it is not considered a party with which you could form a coalition,” given the political mainstream’s still united front in treating
the AfD as a pariah.

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