German Far-Right Elects New Leaders Amid Anti-Racist Protest

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has elected new leadership after its triumphant turnout in September's general election, prompting hundreds of people to stage street protests against the anti-migrant, anti-Islam party.

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The AfD received nearly 13 percent of the vote and almost 100 seats in parliament — a turning point of post-war German politics that left Chancellor Angela Merkel as the winner but still struggling to form a ruling coalition.

However, the AfD was divided between radical nationalists and more moderate forces, with co-leader Frauke Petry abruptly quitting just days after the election to form her own breakaway party.

The party's incumbent leader Jorg Meuthen — seen as a relative moderate in the movement — won enough votes to keep his post, but in a vote that dragged into the evening, he was joined as co-leader by Alexander Gauland to replace Petry.

Gauland, who once defended an AfD member who had said history should be rewritten to focus on German victims of World War Two, co-led the party until 2015.

Meanwhile, hundreds of demonstrators staged sit-ins to block roadways to the venue in the city center, delaying the start of the Congress by about 50 minutes, until the police deployed water cannon to remove the anti-fascist, pro-refugee activists.

Launched as a populist anti-euro party in 2013, the AfD has veered sharply to the right since and campaigned for the September election with slogans such as "Bikinis Not Burqas," "Stop Islamisation" and "Merkel must go."

It is now represented in 14 of Germany's 16 state parliaments, but has been shunned as a potential partner at the national level by mainstream parties.

The fractured political landscape has made it more difficult than ever for Merkel, in power for 12 years, to cobble together a ruling majority. She is now trying to woo the center-left Social Democrats back into a right-left "grand coalition" government.

If she is successful and averts a snap election, the AfD would become Germany's largest opposition power, strongly boosting its profile.