Pirate Party Makes
Huge Gains in Iceland’s Election
Arrr! Pirates are taking over Iceland! Well, maybe not quite.
But the Pirate Party more than tripled its number of seats in Parliament in
Saturday’s election — from 3 seats to 10 — which is a huge victory for the
anti-establishment party. The Parliament only has 63 seats total.
The
Pirate Party Helped Show The PM The Door
The victory is
so significant, that it forced Prime Minister Sigurdur Ingi
Johannsson to resign.
That is no small feat for a group that was just founded in 2012, following
the collapse of the country’s banking industry.
The Prime
Minister’s Progressive Party, which is center-right, lost significant
ground, having shrunk from 19 seats to eight. The Progressive Party’s
partner, the Independence Party, won the most with 21 seats, giving
the right wing a total of just 29.
In the
parliamentary system, parties form
coalitions in
order to rule, or to have significant influence. New coalitions will have to
form since none of the factions have a majority of the seats. The Pirate Party
declared its intent to join with three or four left-wing and centrist
parties, an effort that could end up as the ruling majority.
The Pirates
made their gains on a platform of progressive
values, including:
- direct democracy
- governmental and corporate transparency
- the redistribution of wealth
- a focus on civil rights
- a right to privacy
- freedom of information and expression
The
Pirate Party Is Young But Mighty
A significant
note for the United States to heed is that the Pirate Party is a young party —
both in terms of how old it is and how old its membership is. According to the New York
Times, 40% are under the age of 30.
Birgitta
Jonsdottir, one of the founders of the Pirate Party, told Agence France-Presse:
We are a platform for young people, for progressive people who shape and reshape our society. Like Robin Hood, because Robin Hood was a pirate, we want to take the power from the powerful to give it to the people.
Immediately
after the election, she told her cheering supporters:
Whatever happens, we have created a wave of change in the Icelandic society.
Jonsdottir isn’t
the only one who is clear on that point. Political consultant Andres
Jonsson noted that whichever faction ends up with a ruling coalition, the
situation will not be a return to the status quo:
The traditional party system has been disrupted. We are not seeing big movements of people who feel that they are able to relate with the messages of the big coalition parties. Changes are going to come from the outside, not from inside the old parties.
Again, America
might want to perk up its ears and pay attention to the groundswell of
dissatisfaction in Iceland — and especially to the Pirate
Party’s motto:
WE ARE PIRATES. WE ARE EVERYWHERE. WE WILL WIN.
So have the
Pirates taken over Iceland? Not quite yet. But stay tuned.
Go Pirates!
Deborah Montesano is a political blogger and social activist. In
spite of years of monitoring the political scene in America, she remains
optimistic about the future.
