Swedish Pirate Party Fails To Enter Parliament

pickens writes "TorrentFreak reports that with 95 percent of the votes counted, it is clear that the Pirate Party will not enter the Swedish Parliament. The Party is currently stuck at about 1 percent of the total vote, nowhere near the 4 percent threshold it needs. This means that neither WikiLeaks nor The Pirate Bay will be hosted under Parliamentary immunity and the Party won't get the chance to legalize non-commercial file-sharing or criminalize 'copyright abuse' as they planned. 'The Swedish Pirate Party did its best election campaign ever. We had more media, more articles, more debates, more handed-out flyers than ever. Unfortunately, the wind was not in our sails this time, as it was with the European elections,' says party leader Rick Falkvinge. The party will now have to wait four more years before they have another shot at entering the Swedish Parliament. 'Each generation must reconquer democracy,' adds Falkvinge. 'Nobody said it was going to be an easy fight.'"

Comments

Re:Democracy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Piraty Party itself ignored whole area of jobs, healthcare and so on. The actual important things that government should take care of, and what majority of people care about. For most people they are more important than the ability to get entertainment for free. That's how democracy works.

If they want to be taken seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

Then they need to drop the childish name. "The Pirate Party" makes it sound like they are a bunch of rebellious kids flaunting how they like to break the law and get away with it.

If they want positive economic and legal reform, then they should adopt a name that is expressive of such reform, in a mature and positive light.

Maybe some thing like "the digital party" or "the free information party" or maybe pull a trick out of the other side's hat and choose something like "the information protection party" or "cultural preservation party."

I hope four years is enough time for them to grow up.

Re:If they want to be taken seriously

[Joce640k]

Is it any more stupid than "Liberal", "Labour" or "Conservative"?

If a new party came along calling itself the "The Conservative Party" you'd probably come up with a few jokes. Their original name ("The Whigs") is even better.

Re:Democracy?

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

How is democracy related to stealing revenue from other people?

If majority A wants to screw minority B, then democracy has got you covered! Well, to within a constitution, but constitutions have never covered all possible methods of screwing.

However, democracy doesn't protect against stupid decisions. Democracy is only as good as the people who use it.

(Mods, bring it on! I'm not even trolling, but it never stopped you before!)