The Swedish Pirate Party winning one seat in the European Parliament was a major milestone for the party on the world stage. It inspired several people in different countries to form their own Pirate Party in different countries around the world. So, one can only imagine what it means for the international movement on word that the German Pirate Party has enough votes to win several government seats in Germany.
If the international movement of the Pirate Party wanted something to celebrate over today, consider the latest news out of Germany to be the news story to do it. Reports are surfacing (Google Translation) that during several municipal elections held across Germany, the Pirate Party have earned a sufficient number of votes to be on several city councils throughout Germany.
The victory followed up a strong campaign throughout Germany where users were encouraged to place Pirate Party posters and wave Pirate Party flags on the streets and (naturally) while on the water as well. We would visit the German Pirate Party website for more information, but the site seems to be either slow or timing out altogether as of this writing. Sweden was the first country to elect a Pirate Party member, now Germany has become the second country to have, through an election, elected members of the Pirate Party.
Currently, in many other parts of the world including numerous countries in Europe, the Pirate Party is trying to gain enough support to register their party so they can participate in elections as well. Membership in several countries can be attributed to the fact that the copyright industry has been pushing for a so-called “three strikes and your out” regime in spite of the fact that the European Parliament recognizes internet access as a fundamental right. Some countries have seen a push to use privacy invasive technology such as data retention to target alleged copyright infringement. Many responded by turning to the Pirate Party after politicians became more interested in listening to the copyright industry lobbyists instead of their own constituents.
Specific details on how successful the German Pirate Party has been in Germany hasn’t surfaced with the news yet, but there’s little doubt that things like the final percentage of the vote and exactly how many seats officially won will soon follow.
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Nothing very sensational, but a nice success nonetheless. 1 seat each in the city councils of Aachen and Münster, but the party was only on the list on 8 of 33 respectively 18 of 32 voting districts. In the districts where they were up for a vote, they got over 6%.
In the election of the state government of saxony the party reached 1.9 %, doubling their result from the european election. Parliament seats require at least 5%. Some cities had higher results, for example Dresden with 3.4%.
Yesterday, we registered our candidates in all 14 voting districts in Czech Republic and we are between 14 parties which will fully participate in Czech parlamentary elections (Oct 9-10 2009). Czech pirate party (CPS) was anounced 19.4. and registered 17.6.
Unfortunately, we don’t have english translation of our site, because all our powers are devoted to this wild election ride. Congratulation to our German friends.