Sawt Falasteen - Protests delay start of German far-right party's key meet

The party's 600-odd delegates are expected to approve its manifesto at the two-day meet ahead of a snap general election on February 23 and to formally nominate its leader Alice Weidel as candidate for chancellor.

The draft version of the manifesto includes an exit from the euro and a tough immigration policy.

An AfD party spokesman told AFP that the programme was delayed by at least an hour due to protests preventing delegates from reaching the venue.

Police have said that they expect up to 10,000 people demonstrators outside the town's convention centre.

"We are filling the streets of Riesa with diversity, solidarity and openness and are gathering in numbers in front of the entrances to the AfD congress," said Mascha Meier, one of the protest organisers.

On Saturday morning, a police spokesman described the situation as "dynamic" but largely calm as demonstrators braved the cold shouting slogans such as "no to Nazis".

Police have erected cordons on roads leading to the centre of Riesa but demonstrators tried to break through them.

Protest organisers said police had hit groups of demonstrators and deployed pepper spray.

The congress comes days after Weidel was promoted by US tech billionaire Elon Musk in a livestream on his X social media platform.

The AfD is currently in second place in opinion polls, and has gone up slightly from 19 to 20 percent in recent poll averages.

The conservative CDU/CSU is leading at 31 percent while Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats are in third place at 15 percent.

H.Jarrar--SF-PST