Germany's far-right AfD weakened by infighting, virus fears

A long-simmering row between the leaders of Germany's far-right AfD party and its radical fringe has boiled over, sapping their strength as Chancellor Angela Merkel climbs in the polls. As voters look for steady leadership amid the coronavirus outbreak, the Alternative for Germany party, which had capitalised on fears linked to the large 2015-16 refugee influx, has struggled to keep a lid on increasingly toxic infighting. A feud between populist ultra-conservatives and elements in the party with ties to the right-wing extremist scene came to a head over the weekend after the party leadership ousted one of its state leaders, Andreas Kalbitz.  Kalbitz, who ran the AfD's operations in Brandenburg, the large rural state surrounding Berlin, had concealed his past membership in a neo-Nazi outfit, "German Youths Loyal to the Fatherland". The censure by the party's relatively moderate co-leader Joerg Meuthen was seen as part of a strategy to maintain the AfD as a viable alternative for middle-class voters turned off by an association with radical skinheads. "We are a traditional conservative party," Meuthen, an economics professor, told ARD public television. "We need to demonstrate...