Pirate Party Wins Seat In Berlin

An anonymous reader writes "The Pirate Party won its first seat in the Berlin state elections with almost 9% of the vote. From the article: '"We will get right to work," top Pirate candidate, Andreas Baum, told ZDF television. "This is all new for us."'"

Reactions of other parties

[tp1024]

The funny thing is of course how the other parties reacted. When it became clear that the Pirate Party would likely get into the parliament (predicted to get 6.5% at most), they were already scandalized, how anybody could vote such loonies. Now, I must confess I haven't watched all the reactions of other parties, but after the election both SPD and CDU were dismissive to the point of insulting those who voted for the Pirate Party. (Whose voters are more educated than the average of the electorate.)

A representative of the Left party pointed out that having to few members nominated than the seats they won indicated that they must have overestimated themselves (sic!). Green Representative Renate Künast claimed that her party got the most gains of all parties - the Green Party gained 4.5% more votes than during the last election in 2006 ... but the Pirate Party gained about 6% over that result - reaching 9%. Also none, none of the other parties saw fit to even mention the name Pirate Party even once. They all skirted the issue by saying something like - those others, a new party in the left spectrum or whatever.

Aloofness abounds among established parties, caring about their claim to power first, other parties in the government next and the people ... oh ... well what? The people? Who's that?

Re:Reactions of other parties

[tp1024]

Most parties have firm opinions on all sorts of matters. Often contradictory opinions both within one party and with other parties. In order to make those opinions seem to be substantial, they cite experts whom they know to support their opinions in the first place. Or they hire experts or "scientists" or statisticians to write up some scientific seeming study with preconceived conclusions.

Given that, I prefer a party that limits its opinions to things it (and me) truly believes in. And tries to use its own best judgment and explicitly that of its voters on those points where it doesn't - instead of stubbornly staying with a party line it is keeping only because it has adopted some opinion to some point for some reason in the past and now can't change it, because of they've already backed those random opinions up with heaps and heaps of lies and propaganda that would fly in its face if it were to change even some of those opinions.

Re:Reactions of other parties

[henni16]

Sorry, but this is simply not true.
Except for "When it became clear that the Pirate Party would likely get into the parliament (predicted to get 6.5% at most), they were already scandalized, how anybody could vote such loonies."

I'm not sure what you've watched, but it certainly wasn't the coverage by ARD or later the local RBB. Or not a lot of it.

Other parties had no problem naming them and dis so frequently as the success of the Pirates and the catastrophic result of the FDP were the main topics of most discussions.
Yeah, of course they also called the Pirates "new", but so did the Pirates themselves.
During a talk with representatives of all parties (that matter), they even did a little "special" analyzing where the pirates' 9% came from and asked everybody's opinion about that and why their parties didn't manage to get those votes.

Some politicians from the "established" parties even congratulated the Pirates. I remember people from the Greens and the Lefts doing so.
And they certainly didn't say "Congratulations to those others".

And I don't remember a Left party guy talking about "they overestimated themselves".
But I do remember one pointing out how the Pirates _under_estimated their own chances and that the Pirates obviously were surprised by their success as much as anybody else, citing (almost) not having enough candidates listed to fill the seats they won as a proof.
And he wasn't alone, several Pirate candidates repeatedly stated how they were "baff" (perplexed) or "still a bit in shock" in view of their success.

I also have no problem with Künast claiming they gained the most as those gains and losses are calculated in comparison to the last state election in 2006 and the Pirates weren't yet on the ballot back then.
If you say the Pirates gained 6% to reach their 9%, you're comparing their result today to the 3% they got in Berlin during the last national election in 2009, i.e. you're comparing apples and oranges because
a) people vote differently in state and national elections and
b) the gains and losses of the other parties were based on the results of a different election.
Yeah, technically the Pirates gained the most since they went from nothing to 9%, but I don't blame her for ignoring the n00bs when the main intent is to show how they are more awesome than the sucktitide that's their traditional enemies or their (realistic) competitors when it comes to building the government.

Re:No surprises here...

[multi io]

Uhm, no? The name "Pirate Party" works much better in Sweden, which has Pirates in their history and a population that knows enough English to know the term "software piracy". In Germany, pirates are usually associated with Somalia and the German equivalent for "pirated software" translates as "robbery copy". There was a lot of debate about weather or not it's a good idea to even call it "Pirate Party", in the end it was decided that a consistent name across all countries has more value than having names that better match the local culture.

tl;dr In Germany, "Pirate" is a meaningless, valueless (or bad) word when used in politics.

Not exactly true; "Softwarepiraterie" (literally "software piracy") is a well-known german term that's used in public discussions about the subject quite frequently [microsoft.com].