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Pirate Party Wins At Least One European Parliament Seat

Posted by timothy on from the replace-amateur-clowns-with-professional-clowns dept.

reeeh2000 writes "According to TorrentFreak, with half of polling stations now closed in Sweden, the Pirate Party has at least one guaranteed seat in the EU Parliament. Currently, the party is sitting with 7% of the vote. Depending on how the remaining districts voted, the Pirate Party could win another seat, for a total of two." Reader lordholm adds a link to an article about exit polls in Sweden (link in Swedish) indicating that the Pirate Party will score two seats, writing "According to the polls, the pirate party is the largest party in the 18-30 year age category of voters. The final counting of votes (including around a million postal votes) will not be done until later next week."

7 of 674 comments (clear)

  1. German results by mseeger · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hi,

    the pirate party reached in germany 0,9%. Concerning lack of attention from the media, nearly non-existent funds and that stupid name, this is a very strong result for them.

    CU, Martin

    1. Re:German results by adpe · · Score: 5, Informative

      Sadly, we germans somehow think it's a good idea to only allow parties who get >=5% of the votes into our (or the european) parliaments. Might be because of our history, but we (the german pirate party, I'm a member), need to gain significant support to actually be allowed to say anything.

  2. More about the Swedish Pirate Party by TorKlingberg · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Pirate Party has an English page here that describes the basics. It has gained a lot of support after they, together with bloggers etc, managed to drum up public opposition to a wiretapping law, a law forcing ISPs to store traffic data, new copyright enforcement laws and the Pirate Bay trial. It has been growing since 2006 and spreads internationally, but this is the first parliamentary seat.

  3. The pirates like FOSS by CHJacobsen · · Score: 5, Informative

    It might be interesting for slashdotters to know that the top-candidate of the Pirate Party is a free-software contributor, and has been working a lot previously to establish open standards and to fight software patents.

    Their success might turn out to be an asset for free software as well as integrity.

    --
    Important stuff
  4. Re:Bravo! by skrolle2 · · Score: 5, Informative

    What civil liberties and personal rights are you voting to protect?

    The right to not have my traffic snooped on by the government as the FRA law in Sweden allows.

    The right to not end up in a logfile whenever I send an email or visit a webpage, as the EU data retention directive wants.

    The right to not have my internet cut off on the say-so of big copyright holding companies, as the French three-strikes law allows.

    The right to not have my home searched and my assets seized on the say-so of copyright holders, as the Swedish IPRED law allows.

    These things are important, not only for me, not only for those who download illegally, but for everyone who uses the internet. It is absolutely essential that civil liberties are respected on the internet and in real life. I didn't vote for the PirateParty so people can download stuff for free, I voted for them to stop the draconian surveillance bullshit that's being pushed in the name of stopping terrorism, child porn and illegal filesharing, but which in reality accomplishes nothing of the sort, it only lessens my right and my liberties.

  5. Re:Bravo! by rawler · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Pirate Party is nothing more than a bunch of college kids who want shit for free.

    Interesting. Looking at their top 10 candidates for national government a few years back, you'll find that their average age is 38, and that 7/10 is 40 or older.

    Among their top active public members, can be found an author, a musician, several with years of background in it consulting, one with a former background as director of a book publishing company, one with a background in national politics and a few with active backgrounds in other larger political parties.

    So while some of the members are certainly cheap greedy kids as you describe them, clearly that does not constitute the entire party.

  6. Re:Bravo! by Hurricane78 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Simple. There are two factors:
    1) The party was founded there. Give it some time in other countries. (At least we have 0.9% here in Germany. Which means they get the campaign money back.)
    2) Education. The Nordic countries are known for their high education and open-mindedness. (Add Estonia to that group too.)

    Here in Germany, people like to talk about "stupid Americans" or British. But in fact, we're nearly as stupid. And it gets worse every day.
    Being dumb has kind of a "cool" and "you have to respect me" touch here. People nearly brag about their stupidity.
    Which does not surprise me at all, with our drone promoting school system and the B-vitamin killing stuff that most people eat.

    --
    Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.