Swedish Pirate Party suffers embarrassing general election flop

The Swedish Pirate Party failed to secure a parliamentary seat in Sweden's general election yesterday, after it pulled in less than 1.4 per cent of the vote. Swedish electocrats have yet to confirm exactly how many votes the Pirate Party garnered on Sunday as they are still counting, but an exit poll suggested the outfit …

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh well

Perhaps they should acknowledge that quite frankly no gives a monkey's and novelty has worn off.

[DrXym]

Their stupid name doesn't help

Reduced copyright & patent controls and greater use of open source software all have compelling arguments to support them. But those arguments fall on deaf ears when they're coming from something called the Pirate Party.

The name conjures up two things in people's minds - either a) something akin to the Monster Raving Loonies, but with pirates or b) a bunch of disgruntled losers who want something for nothing. If they want to be taken seriously, they need to rebrand themselves and convey a more professional & pragmatic attitude to their issues. Otherwise they are just going to fail in one election after another.

[Anonymous Coward]

rebrand?

perhaps to : The Standing at the Back Dressed Stupidly and Looking Stupid Party

[JaitcH]

So where ...

does this leave Wikileaks hosting in the parliament building?

[moonface]

Embarrassing 1.4 per cent of the vote.

Not sure on the Swedish system but 1.4 per cent vote is quite good in the U.K. elections.

Green part 1% = 1 seat

Sinn Féin 0.6% = 5 seats

Democratic Unionist 0.6% = 8 seats

Plaid Cymru 0.6% = 3 seats

SDLP 0.4% = 3 seats

I can't remember any of these parties being embarrassed. So carry on the good work and hopefully one day you will be rewarded with a fairer political system.

[Chris Miller]

Embarrassing comparison

Except for the Greens, all the above are regional parties that choose to stand for election at a small proportion of the overall seats available. It would be possible for an independent to win a single seat with around 0.1% of the total vote, which tells us absolutely nothing about the national fairness (or otherwise) of the electoral system.

[moonface]

Not embarrassing at all.

I take your point. But why should they still be embarrassed by 1.4% of a vote?

Also why is the system fairer, to give greater representation to those, with the some old tribalistic meme ideology that arises from just living in a specific geographical region? as opposed to under representation for dispersed individuals with a more universal idealogy.

It's always the same, the majority voters will always be forced to vote for one of the main parties, else they perceive their vote is wasted. I am sure if there was full proportional representation then these results would change radically.

[david wilson]

@moonface

>>"I am sure if there was full proportional representation then these results would change radically."

I'm not sure about that.

Even if a candidate from a small party gets elected by PR, they only really have influence if they hold (or share in the holding of) the balance of power.

Even then, if they're someone that none of the mainstream parties want to be seen dead working with, (like far-right or far-left parties), they still end up having little or no effect.

A party who'd been in that position once may well not be likely to get people other than hard-core supporters flocking to vote for them next time round, since people could end up seeing a vote for them as being effectively wasted even if they get elected in larger numbers.

I guess what would probably be more interesting would be a survey of voters, asking how sympathetic people are or aren't to any of the Pirate Party's aims.

If sympathy is low, then elected or not, they'd be unlikely to have much influence.

[FlorianMueller]

The Pirate Party was only part of 1.4% of "others"

According to a Swedish TV station's exit poll, the Pirate Party got about 0.7% of votes.

[Steen Hive]

@Oh well

The novelty has worn off - now we have the 'novel' possibility of having 20 fucking brownshirt fascists holding the balance of power in parliament. Happy days.

[Rogerborg]

Should've just stolen a few million votes

Sorry - I meant "shared".

[FlorianMueller]

Has the Pirate Party boat sunk? IP-skeptical platform decimated in Swedish election

I was very skeptical of the party's ability to evolve into a serious political force. Its hackle-raising name helped to get a lot of attention quickly, but it's a bad positioning in the long run. I blogged about it:

http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2010/09/has-pirate-party-boat-sunk-ip-skeptical.html

[Anonymous Coward]

Pessimal?

If that word exists it shouldn't.

Horrible.

[MacroRodent]

One-issue parties, evolution of

The Pirates have the same trouble as all one-issue parties: Even people sympathetic to the cause often vote other parties because they also want to consider the party's position on other issues, and one-issue parties usually have none, or just vague mumbling. To break out of this, a party must develop a wider program that makes sense to a non-trivial sample of the voters, and also throw out the nut cases.

The Greens in various European countries have managed this. 30 years ago they too were at the lunatic fringe, now they are respectable enough to occasionally be part of governing coalitions. (As expected, the hardliners cry they have sold out).

[rahul]

Perhaps voters...

...are more concerned about "real" issues, such as the economy, jobs, administration, infrastructure etc.

Standing on a plank for a "fairer copyrights" system doesn't tell voters how the rest of the issues are going to be handled.

Maybe they should just aim for being part of a coalition government, with possible postings for departments related to copyright activities.