Pirate Party Wins Seat In Berlin

An anonymous reader writes "The Pirate Party won its first seat in the Berlin state elections with almost 9% of the vote. From the article: '"We will get right to work," top Pirate candidate, Andreas Baum, told ZDF television. "This is all new for us."'"

Comments

Re:First...

[wo1verin3]

Just in time for Talk Like a Pirate Day, September 19th.

Not just one

[Shoe Puppet]

They haven't just won one seat but about 14-15. Interestingly, more seats would have been mostly useless to them as they have only nominated 15 candidates -- if they gain more seats than that or if they have to replace a member mid-term, they will have to leave that seat empty.

Re:Not just one

[Asic Eng]

Yes their original goal was "merely" to get over the 5% hurdle. German state and federal elections are run with a proportional voting system, but there is a 5% cut-off. So if you have less than 5% of the votes you will not get any seats, even if your proportion of the votes would amount to one or two. (Leaving out some details here, but that's the gist of it.) So getting over that hurdle is a big deal for a new party.

Not just one

[BitterKraut]

Chances are that everyone on their list, which comprised only 15 candidates, will win a seat in the Berlin senate.

"Pirate Party" is *not* about 'piracy' !

[Anonymous Coward]

It's much more a technically aware party that does lots of things right where other 'conservative' parties just still behave like 40 years ago ..

For me the name 'Pirate' ist the worst part of the party, as this is probably why lots of people won't ever take them serious .. even if they have good ideas. (Just like the Chaos Computer Club (CCC)... )

big win

[Tom]

This is a huge win for the german Pirate Party, as it puts it on the radar of all the mainstream press, even those that tried to ignore it so far.

By this time tomorrow, everyone in Germany will have heard about the Pirate Party. That one of the old, established parties has been decisively kicked from parliament (~2% of the votes, with 5% being required to enter parliament) only strengthens this perception, as the Pirate Party is called a "replacement" in some circles - the party kicked out is the Liberal party, which aside from being strictly capitalistic also used to ride on the tickets of things like freedom, liberty, individualism - stuff that is close to the Pirates as well.

Also, the PP has gotten through other important barriers straight away: They're officially a faction, with all the rights (an office in the parliament building, etc.) of the old parties. It will be receiving campaign money (Germany has a system where the parties receive tax money to cover their expenses during the campaigns, based on the number of votes they got, but you need a certain amount to receive any at all. The purpose of the system is to make sure not only the rich can afford campaigns, and parties don't need to rely on contributions from lobbyists/companies/etc. to campaign).

Re:I cannot wait for the next Canadian election!

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, the Canadians are the victims of the so-called "first past the post" riding system, which is very anti-democratic. This means you will have to pick your riding very carefully.

Re:Libertarian

[Anonymous Coward]

The german pirate party supports a basic income guarantee (social security with less stigma and pressure to get a viable job). That puts them way out of anything an American for instance would recognize as "libertarian".

Re:Dear Pirate Party:

[Kjella]

They say a lot of things, but under Politics -> Copyright you find statements like:

Daher fordern wir, das nichtkommerzielle Kopieren, ZugÃnglichmachen, Speichern und Nutzen von Werken nicht nur zu legalisieren, sondern explizit zu fÃrdern, um die allgemeine Verfügbarkeit von Information, Wissen und Kultur zu verbessern, denn dies stellt eine essentielle Grundvoraussetzung für die soziale, technische und wirtschaftliche Weiterentwicklung unserer Gesellschaft dar.

Or in English (unofficial translation):

Therefore we demand that non-commercial copying, sharing, storing and use of works not only be legalized, but explicitly promoted to improve the overall availability of information, knowledge and culture, because this is a crucial prerequisite for the social, technical and economic development of our society.

I think there's a few copyright holders who would choke on that one. Also they want to built open, anonymous wifi networks and absolve the ISPs of all liability = free file sharing in practice. They have a very broad political program compared to the Swedish party, but they are no less radical when it comes to copyright. I do hope hey pass the 5% barrier in the national election in 2013, then it could get real fun (they had 2% in 2009 - more than 3x what the Swedish PP managed in their national election...)