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German Pirate Party Enters 2nd State Parliament

An anonymous reader writes "After its recent success in the Berlin elections, the German Pirate Party scores 7.4% of votes for the state parliament of Saarland, earning them 4 seats out of 51. While the campaign didn't center around copyright issues and/or ACTA (the party's stance is well-known), it centered around open government, access to education, and participative governing models, effectively ridding the party of its 'one issue' notion."

3 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Working within the rules can still work by Yvanhoe · · Score: 5, Informative

    Exactly. Having participated in the French PP, I can say that our chances of ever having a representative are far slimer : here you need a majority vote in a district for that to happen. But it can happen through deals with other big parties. "We are worth 3%. We'll call to vote for you if you put net neutrality in your program and let a PP candidate run without your opposition in 3% of the winnable districts"

    --
    The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
  2. Re:Better: Some new "Pro-Electric Vehicle Party" w by abridgedslashdotuser · · Score: 5, Informative

    Frankly, I'd prefer to see some issue-specific "Green" party get in: Eg, the Subj ones.

    They have a green party in Germany and they are also just got voted in and will be sitting "right beside" the "pirates" in the state parliament after this election there in Saarland.

    There are, after all, some more critical (eg, to life on Earth) issues to be solved here.

    A party who opposes censorship, data retention and supports more government transparency is also needed and these issues do matter there, because the "pirates" got 7,4 % of the votes in Saarland so their program is more supported then that of the green party who barely got over the 5 percent threshold with their 5,0 %. I think you just said something without knowing the political situation there, or am i wrong?

    But besides all these things got me wondering... in Germany even new and small parties have a chance to get into parliaments and now there are six different bigger parties (cdu/csu, spd, the green party, the left party and now the pirate party) and many more small parties there to chose from, but in the us they just got stuck with two, why? I don't get it where is the democracy in that?

  3. Re:Working within the rules can still work by schwitzkroko · · Score: 5, Informative

    They are represented in the Saarland parliament now. That is the legislative, not the executive body. Theoretically they could be included into government by a coalition, but this is not going to happen for now.