Sweden’s Pirate Party was optimistic about its chances leading up to yesterday’s general election, but the results are in and it doesn’t look good for the upstart political movement. Under current election procedures, you need at least 4 percent of the national votes or 12 percent in any one electoral district to qualify for a parliamentary seat, and the Pirate Party came up short with only 0.6 percent of the national vote.
Four districts gave the party more than a 1 percent share, but none of those tallies exceeded 2 percent. Just days before the election, Pirate Party press releases said that the party was “stronger than ever,” that the party had more members than three of the largest alternative parties combined, and that it should snag at least a 5 percent national share. As vote counts roll in today, 4,810 votes cast for the party (links to material in Swedish) placed it firmly on a benchwarmer’s seat, behind one of the parties it dissed last week, and below the total of 12,577 blank votes cast. The 822 districts counted at the time of writing was enough for Prime Minister Göran Persson to tender his resignation. More on that later.
It’s unfortunate to see the party fall short of its goals, and party leaders are placing some of the blame on unfair procedures. “We have received reports of voters who were told that blank ballots will become invalid if anything is written on them,” says Pirate Party leader Rickard Falkvinge. “We saw reports of election officials who moved ballots for all non-parliament parties to a spot outside the polling place. Unfortunately, overall reports point to obvious problems with democratic election procedures.” Writing in your own candidate or party on a blank ballot does not, in fact, invalidate the vote. Sour grapes or legitimate complaints? I’m sure there will be formal complaints and official investigations to settle that question.
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Oh well better luck next time. But to get into a government establishment with a grass roots movement is going to be extremely hard! It is hard for people with political parties backing them with millions of dollars….how much more is it for some start up party with a grass roots movement and a good idea?
I really was pulling for them but I knew that it would probably turn out like this. They simply do not have a voter base like the other parties do. I am not saying I agree that it is the bset thing for an established party to be in power but that is usually the way it is. Here in america if you are not democrat or republican and do not have their support…it makes it ten times harder to reach your ob jective because you simply do not usually have the funding to do it. But take someone like Ross Perot…..he HAD funding but nobody wanted him as president of the US. Though I think a monkey could do a better job than Bush is right now.
But the poinbt is that if you usually do not have a major political party backing you your chances of winning in ANY country are slim to none.