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.

Maybe...

[MrEricSir]

...others can copy their strategy?

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.

Re:First...

[vranash]

Weren't pirates often 'reliefing' the government of it's 'hard earned' tax dollars? By 'hard earned' I meant: 'stolen from the poor'?:D

Re:But where

[SomePgmr]

They're present, but go unnoticed.

Reactions of other parties

[tp1024]

The funny thing is of course how the other parties reacted. When it became clear that the Pirate Party would likely get into the parliament (predicted to get 6.5% at most), they were already scandalized, how anybody could vote such loonies. Now, I must confess I haven't watched all the reactions of other parties, but after the election both SPD and CDU were dismissive to the point of insulting those who voted for the Pirate Party. (Whose voters are more educated than the average of the electorate.)

A representative of the Left party pointed out that having to few members nominated than the seats they won indicated that they must have overestimated themselves (sic!). Green Representative Renate Künast claimed that her party got the most gains of all parties - the Green Party gained 4.5% more votes than during the last election in 2006 ... but the Pirate Party gained about 6% over that result - reaching 9%. Also none, none of the other parties saw fit to even mention the name Pirate Party even once. They all skirted the issue by saying something like - those others, a new party in the left spectrum or whatever.

Aloofness abounds among established parties, caring about their claim to power first, other parties in the government next and the people ... oh ... well what? The people? Who's that?

Re:Reactions of other parties

[Arancaytar]

Sure. Minus the creationism, gold standard and crazy stuff, of course.

Re:Reactions of other parties

[henni16]

Sorry, but this is simply not true.
Except for "When it became clear that the Pirate Party would likely get into the parliament (predicted to get 6.5% at most), they were already scandalized, how anybody could vote such loonies."

I'm not sure what you've watched, but it certainly wasn't the coverage by ARD or later the local RBB. Or not a lot of it.

Other parties had no problem naming them and dis so frequently as the success of the Pirates and the catastrophic result of the FDP were the main topics of most discussions.
Yeah, of course they also called the Pirates "new", but so did the Pirates themselves.
During a talk with representatives of all parties (that matter), they even did a little "special" analyzing where the pirates' 9% came from and asked everybody's opinion about that and why their parties didn't manage to get those votes.

Some politicians from the "established" parties even congratulated the Pirates. I remember people from the Greens and the Lefts doing so.
And they certainly didn't say "Congratulations to those others".

And I don't remember a Left party guy talking about "they overestimated themselves".
But I do remember one pointing out how the Pirates _under_estimated their own chances and that the Pirates obviously were surprised by their success as much as anybody else, citing (almost) not having enough candidates listed to fill the seats they won as a proof.
And he wasn't alone, several Pirate candidates repeatedly stated how they were "baff" (perplexed) or "still a bit in shock" in view of their success.

I also have no problem with Künast claiming they gained the most as those gains and losses are calculated in comparison to the last state election in 2006 and the Pirates weren't yet on the ballot back then.
If you say the Pirates gained 6% to reach their 9%, you're comparing their result today to the 3% they got in Berlin during the last national election in 2009, i.e. you're comparing apples and oranges because
a) people vote differently in state and national elections and
b) the gains and losses of the other parties were based on the results of a different election.
Yeah, technically the Pirates gained the most since they went from nothing to 9%, but I don't blame her for ignoring the n00bs when the main intent is to show how they are more awesome than the sucktitide that's their traditional enemies or their (realistic) competitors when it comes to building the government.

Re:Dear Pirate Party:

[Tom]

If you had actually read the statements of the german Pirate Party, you'd know their position is not one of "screw the creators, everything free for everyone", but quite a bit more thought-out. Go read it.

Re:Dear Pirate Party:

[Adrian Lopez]

Stop screwing creators.

Tell that to the music labels.

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).