Pirate Party Achieve Three Seats Of National Parliament In Icelandic Elections

The Pirate Party of Iceland achieved something very impressive yesterday after acquiring three seats of parliament in the Icelandic national elections. In total, the Pirate Party grabbed 5.1% of the total vote – pretty impressive for a party that is only a few months old in Iceland.  The Pirate Party’s success in Iceland also marks the first time that the Pirate Party has been elected into any national parliament. They have of course had other successes such as winning two seats in the European Parliament and winning 20 parliamentary seats in the North Rhine-Westphalia state election. However, this is by far the biggest achievement.

With 95% of the vote counted, the Pirate Party just scraped in with 5.1% of the vote. 5% is needed to get into national Icelandic parliament. Their success is not out of the blue as the Pirate Party were polling very well in the run up to the national elections and for those who can remember, the Pirate Bay just moved its domain to Iceland so we can clearly see the country has a lot of sympathy and support for the Pirate Bay cause.

Three three Pirate Party members elected to Iceland National Pariliament are:

• Birgitta Jónsdóttir, WikiLeaks volunteer and former MP from 2009 – 2013
• Jón Þór Ólafsson, business administration student at the University of Iceland
• Helgi Hrafn Gunnarsson, programmer

With the Pirate Party’s success in Iceland despite being in its infancy, its popularity is expected to grow. We are definitely seeing a trend in European states of people becoming disillusioned with current systems of party politics and the Pirate Party has certainly been able to capitalise on this. The Pirate Party focuses on a wide range of issues including prevention of copyright abuse, political transparency, protection of freedom of speech and privacy and most importantly the protection of the internet.

Rick Falkvinge, founder of the first Pirate Party, had this to say about the election victory in Iceland:

“I’m delighted every time another country gets pirates elected. Some old media and obsolete industries have insisted we were just a flash in the pan. I love it when those stories are exposed as wishful thinking,”

What are your thoughts on the Pirate Party’s success in Iceland?

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