Icelandi Pirate Party WINS, Enters Parliament

[vacuum]

We only ever hear good things coming out of Iceland.


http://falkvinge.net/files/2013/04/IMG_6437-646x363.jpg (http://falkvinge.net/2013/04/28/icelandic-pirate-party-wins-enters-parliament/)
Icelandic Pirate Party WINS, Enters Parliament

The Icelandic Pirate Party has entered Parliament. This is clear as all the votes have been counted, with the Pirate Party at 5.1% as final result, just above the five-percent barrier to entry.

UPDATE AT 1000 UTC

During the night, the support for the Icelandic Pirate Party briefly fell below the five-percent barrier to entry, making the outcome uncertain and the polls wrong. As of 1000 UTC, with all the votes counted, the Pirate Party’s support is at 5.1% with three seats (http://www.mbl.is/frettir/). Article text has been updated to reflect this.

The Icelandic election campaign for the Alþing, the Icelandic parliament (pictured), had been bulging back and forth in support for the major parties. One thing that looked consistent was that the nascent Icelandic Pirate Party (http://www.pirateparty.is/) kept growing, polling between 6.5% and 9.0% in recent polls.

As the first MP was announced for the Pirate Party from the Iceland Southwest constituency, where the party initially held a full 8.3% of the votes, the roof lifted at the Pirate victory dinner celebrations in a posh seafood restaurant in the center of Reykjavik.

The Icelanders are something of a phenomenon, even within the quickly-growing Pirate Party movement. The Icelandic Pirates were founded a mere nine months ago, and got seats in the Alþing today – three seats, as per current projections. That is a speed record by any measure.

This makes the Icelandic Pirate Party the first in the movement to enter a national, proportional parliament! Heartfelt congratulations. Achievement unlocked. After this victory, there are no further governmental levels where the movement is not represented.

The Icelandic Pirate Party didn’t start from nothing, though. They were lucky enough to have very seasoned activists bootstrap the party – such as Birgitta Jónsdóttir (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birgitta_J%C3%B3nsd%C3%B3ttir) (of Wikileaks and of the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, et al) and Smári McCarthy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sm%C3%A1ri_McCarthy) (similarly involved in IMMI and other projects). We don’t know yet which pirates get the actual seats in the Alþing – that will depend on vote distribution among constituencies and such.

Regardless, there will no doubt be a lot of work to do in the Alþing – even though Iceland has been very progressive with its ideas, fewer of those ideas have been implemented in law. Having legislators in Iceland may facilitate that; there’s a lot of work up ahead.

But not tonight.

Tonight, we party and salute our glasses of rum to our Icelandic brothers and sisters in the movement. Well done!


http://falkvinge.net/2013/04/28/icelandic-pirate-party-wins-enters-parliament/

[Serpo]

Go the Pirates


http://www.worldofflags.co.uk/media/gbu0/prodlg/WhatHappensOnBoard.gif

[ArgenteumTelum]

An important observation and lesson to gain from this as it relates to the Homeland. Critical mass CAN be reached for a third party. Votes can be counted and are not automatically wasted, etc. etc.

[vacuum]

Iceland Just Says "Nei" To Pro-European Party (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-29/iceland-just-says-nei-pro-european-party)
During the crisis Iceland was held up as one of the best examples of what was so wrong with the bubble that was created and sold to any and all. The party in power during this debacle was summarily dismissed by the people. However, a mere few years later, and given the apparent abhorrence with all things European, the Icelandic people have just ousted the incumbent pro-Europe party in favor of the Independence and Progressive parties that governed during the crisis. As the WSJ reports (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323528404578450300902745858.html), the Social Democratic Alliance, which had overseen economic recovery and pushed for European Union membership, saw support tumble as the electorate's concern about personal finances overshadowed the ruling coalition's ability to stabilize the economy. Couple this with the promises of the two parties to cut taxes and the sweell of nationalist sentiment and the Social Democrats were summarily crushed. The leader of the Progressive party perhaps summed up the people's views best: "deeper integration with a Europe in "historic decline" isn't necessarily the best for Iceland," and that "economic crisis in Iceland and Europe has taught us the importance of being able to control your own destiny." Of course, as with any election, lots of promises are made; "they have really been promising the moon, people might get dissatisfied when they see that not everything can be realized."

read more: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-29/iceland-just-says-nei-pro-european-party

[Ponce]

To become legal you first must become illegal.

V

[Uncle Salty]

An important observation and lesson to gain from this as it relates to the Homeland. Critical mass CAN be reached for a third party. Votes can be counted and are not automatically wasted, etc. etc.

The Tea Party basically tried this but go captured by the Republicans.

A real Pirate party that could get twenty seats in the Congress could become a swing block. That would be cool. But it would need to be a party that tells both the Republicans and Democrats to fuck off.