German Pirate Party wins 15 seats in Parliament.

[shikitohno]

The Pirate party took 8.9% of the votes, campaigning on a platform of copyright reform, free wireless internet access and public transport, and suffrage for those over the age of 14, amongst other topics. Piraten's victory is the first time any branch of the Pirate party has been elected to a federal legislative body. It remains to be seen how much of their platform they can actually carry out, however, as at best they would be able to constitute a minority party in a coalition of Grüne-Linke-Piraten, which would represent about 37% of the votes cast. Of course, not really being up to date on my German political parties, I can't say how likely such a coalition would be. Even this sort of coalition would still be dwarfed by the might wielded by the SPD and the CDU, who together account for roughly 50% of the votes cast.

NPR points out that by coincidence, their victory comes just one day before International Talk Like a Pirate day, a holiday I had no idea existed. News is about a week old, but this is the first I've seen mentioned of it.

[lxskllr]

Go Pirates!

[shikitohno]

lxskllr, I'll throw down $5 on an unclaimed island, let's establish Snustopia under the rule of the Snustopian Pirate Party.

[lxskllr]

lxskllr, I'll throw down $5 on an unclaimed island, let's establish Snustopia under the rule of the Snustopian Pirate Party.

Unclaimed is the tough part. There's still my trash island idea :^D

[Snusdog]

How does one say ......ARRRRG.........in German................Google Translators got nothing

[chainsnuser]

Well, that happens when people are tired of the establishes parties AND smaller parties actually have a chance to make it into the parliaments. In Germany, a party needs 5% of the total votes to reach that goal.

It's unlike America, where a party needs to get 50% of the votes in single states. America will always have a 2-party-system (which in my view is an error or a major flaw in the electoral law).

Okay, Germany had a 3 party-system for a long time, the two major parties SPD and CDU/CSU always got around 45% both and of all the other parties, mostly the "liberal" party FDP made it over the "5%-hurdle". That has changed in the last 20 years. The two major parties together hardly reach 65% of the votes nowadays and often 3 or 4 other parties are elected into the parliaments, sometimes with significantly more than just 5% of the votes. A communist party, a green party ... and now the Piratenpartei.

Actually, after all the neoliberal nonsense of the last 20 years, pushed even by the formerly socialist party "SPD", after all the chumming up with the Zeitgeist of the former conservative party CDU/CSU, the silly dogmatics of the "green" party "Bündnis 90/ Die Grünen", the historically failed stoneage-liberalism of the FDP, the communist lunacies of the "Die Linke", I'm considering to give my vote to the Piratenpartei next time. They seem to be the only ones who still care about the freedom of the individual.

Cheers!

[Mdisch]

I agree with you Chainsnuser - I've been following a bit of German politics and really truly do agree! The Piratenpartei have some really relevant points, and have really moved on since them being formed. They are the ones who truly care about freedom. Even being a socialist I really like the idea of liberalism, and the Piratenpartei are a good mix of what I believe in - a good mix of good liberalism and such