The German extreme right holds a face-to-face congress this weekend in the middle of the third wave of the pandemic

Jörg Meuthen (left) and Tino Chrupalla, co-leaders of Alternative for Germany (AfD), on Friday in Dresden.MATTHIAS RIETSCHEL / Reuters

Some 600 delegates from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party will gather this weekend in the city of Dresden, in eastern Germany, to hold a face-to-face congress in the middle of the third wave of the pandemic in Europe.

It could be considered a sign of coherence: the training has made criticism of the masks and the rest of the restrictions its battle horse against the Government of Angela Merkel.

The stated objective of the meeting is to approve the program with which the AfD will run in the September elections, but the dominant issue is expected to be, once again, the internal division that tears the party apart.

The radical and moderate current will clash again with the delegates from all over Germany.

The last time they met, last November, sparks flew between Jörg Meuthen, co-leader of the formation and representative of the moderate wing that aims to reach broad sections of the population, and the followers of Björn Höcke, who is situated in an extremist speech , xenophobic and bordering on anti-Semitism.

The AfD could benefit from the corruption scandals of the CDU conservatives and their erratic handling of the coronavirus crisis,

analyst Tilman Steffen

points out in

.

But their efforts are likely to be lost in power struggles within the formation, he adds.

Polls seem to indicate that the AfD is not taking advantage of Merkel's party's gradual decline in popularity.

The latest Forschungsgruppe Wahlen poll for the public broadcaster ZDF showed that the CDU union and its Bavarian brother-party CSU would get 28%, the Greens 23%, the SPD Social Democrats 15% and the AfD 12%.

Compared to the pre-pandemic poll, the Conservatives lose seven percentage points and the AfD gains two.

The far-right party is still digesting the poor results it obtained in two regional elections held in March.

It lost more than five percentage points in Baden-Württemberg and more than four in Rhineland-Palatinate compared to the 2016 elections.

Military service and border controls

Political scientist Alexander Häusler, an expert on far-right movements, believes that the upcoming elections could “mark the end of the success story” of the party, which first entered the German Parliament in 2017 with 12.6% of the votes , which turned him into the first force of the opposition.

The training has not been able to profit from the pandemic, despite having spent a year focusing on covid-19 and the restrictions due to the pandemic and leaving in the background those that were its central themes: foreigners, refugees and Islam.

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The AfD has joined the Querdenken movement to protest against the restrictions, which brings together very disparate groups and individuals angry with the Government: deniers, anti-vaccines, conspirators.

The movement is increasingly radicalized by the greater presence of far-rightists, the Baden-Württemberg authorities warned last week.

Some 10,000 people demonstrated without masks or distance last week in Stuttgart and journalists were attacked.

Häusler believes that the AfD can try to capitalize on the fear of the economic consequences of the crisis and position itself as "a nationalist patriotic-social alternative," he said Thursday in a virtual meeting with foreign correspondents.

The political scientist added that attempts to moderate the party have not been successful and that the AfD has been in "a permanent process of radicalization for years."

Being under the surveillance of the Office for the Protection of the German Constitution (BfV), the internal secret services, has been the culmination.

The entire party, and no longer a radical wing or a regional section, is considered suspected of radicalism and of going against the constitutional values ​​of the country.

The AfD is campaigning under the slogan "Germany, but normal," according to ARD public television.

In the draft of the program, he advances the chain, includes a return to compulsory military service, a return to the German mark, border controls and the preservation of nuclear and coal energy.