Swedish Pirate Party Fails To Enter Parliament

The Swedish Pirate Party has failed to replicate last year's massive victory in the European elections. The Party, which promised it would host Wikileaks and The Pirate Bay inside the Swedish Parliament if it would be voted in, lost the majority of last year's support and won't reach the threshold that would allow it to enter Parliament. http://torrentfreak.com//images/piratpartiet.png2009 was a breakthrough year for the Swedish Pirate Party movement. With more than 7 percent of the vote, the Swedish Pirate Party secured two seats in the European Parliament.

Today the Swedes voted for their national Parliament. If the turnout equalled that of last year, the Party would secure more than a dozen seats as the threshold for entering the Parliament in Sweden is 4 percent. However, this was easier said than done.

With 95 percent of the votes counted it is clear that the Pirate Party will not enter the Swedish Parliament. The Party is currently stuck at about 1 percent of the total vote, nowhere near the 4 percent threshold it needs.

This means that Wikileaks nor The Pirate Bay will be hosted under Parliamentary immunity. Even more so, the Party wont get the chance to legalize non-commercial file-sharing or criminalize “copyright abuse” as they planned.

Pirate Party leader Rick Falkvinge told TorrentFreak that the party is disappointed with the outcome, but that they gave it all they got.

“The Swedish Pirate Party did its best election campaign ever. We had more media, more articles, more debates, more handed-out flyers than ever. Unfortunately, the wind was not in our sails this time, as it was with the European elections,” Falkvinge said.

One of the reasons for the lack of votes is the disregard in the debates of all the issues that are so dear to the Pirate Party, Falkvinge told TorrentFreak.

“The other parties had put a collective blanket over the privacy, culture and knowledge issues, as they had absolutely nothing to gain by even mentioning the issues.”

“If the wind is not in your sails, the sweat on your brow will still not steer the ship. I guess the most obvious example is how the appellate trial of The Pirate Bay will begin just nine days after the election,” Falkvinge added.

Despite the huge disappointment among Party members, today’s result was not totally unexpected. For months on end the polls showed the Pirate Party behind. A miracle was needed to come even close to the threshold.

Falkvinge and the other Party members will now have to wait four more years before they have another shot at conquering the Swedish Parliament. For now they have to settle for their two seats in Europe.

“Each generation must reconquer democracy. Nobody said it was going to be an easy fight,” Falkvinge says.

Article from: TorrentFreak.