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Iceland’s Pirate Party Could Be on Course for an Electoral Victory

10/26/2016

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A new poll says the radical fringe party is leading with 22.6%Iceland’s national elections take place on Saturday, and at present, a radical fringe party could be heading for the win.
One in five Icelanders favor the Pirate Party, according to an online opinion poll run by the Social Science Research Institute at the University of Iceland, the Iceland Monitor reports.
The results of the poll put the Pirates in the lead with 22.6%, ahead of the incumbent center-right Independence party by one and a half points.
From its beginnings in the radical margins four years ago, to its position at the center point — and counterpoint — of mainstream Icelandic politics today, the rise of Iceland’s Pirate Party has been short and sharp.
“It’s a people’s movement,” founder Birgitta Jonsdottir, a web designer and former WikiLeaks activist, told the Washington Post in a video interview. “Ordinary people being able to go into parliament and change laws that were actually give other people more power. It’s a message of hope.”
Iceland’s Pirate Party is part of a global political movement that first began in Sweden in 2006 to bring about digital-copyright reform. According to the Post, the party’s political leanings are neither right nor left and policy is vague, focusing on direct democracy, civil rights, transparency and public access to information.
In 2013, three members of Iceland’s Pirate Party were elected to parliament — making Iceland the only country in the world to have members of the Pirate movement in government.
“The Pirates are promising people a new kind of politics,” Professor Ragnheidur Kristjansdottir of the University of Iceland told the Post. “Less corrupt politics where people can participate in a more direct way.”
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    Election 2016 Results 

    Invalid/blank votes 5,574
    Total 195,204
    Registered voters 246,515
    ​Turnout 79.19%

    Independence Party (54,990) 29.00% 21 seats
    Left-Green Movement (30,166) 15.91% 10 seats
    Pirate Party (27,449) 14.48% 10 seats
    Progressive Party (21,791) 11.49% 8 seats
    Reform (19,870) 10.48% 7 seats
    Bright Future (13,578) 7.16% 4 seats
    Social Democratic Alliance (10,893) 5.74% 3 seats
    People’s Party (6,707) 3.54 % No seats
    Dawn (3,275) 1.7% No seats
    People’s Front of Iceland (575) 0.30% No seats
    Icelandic National Front (303) 0.16% No seats
    Humanist Party (33) 0.02% No seats

    In brief | Pirate Party
    What: A pro-free speech, anti-authoritarian political party in Iceland
    Formed: 2012

    Founders: A group of anarchists, hackers and internet-freedom activists

    Leader: The party eschews formal leaders but Birgitta Jonsdottir is the most senior of three Pirate lawmakers in Iceland’s parliament

    Pirate policies
    • direct democracy
    • a new national constitution
    • public vetoes over new laws
    • greater scrutiny of the workings of government
    • strict safeguards for individuals’ online and offline privacy
    • public ownership of the country’s natural resources

    “I would like everybody in Iceland to find the pirate within, because the pirate within really represents change and a collective vision for the future.”
    - Birgitta Jonsdottir, Pirate Party lawmaker

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