Parliamentary Pirates

Believe it or not, the Swedish Pirate Party has garnered enough votes to send at least one MP to the European Parliament. According to Ars, they’re still tallying the numbers but the party has already breached the 4% minimum needed to qualify for a single seat. They’re currently polling at 7.1%. While a single MP in a parliament of 700 may not do very much, it is quite an achieve for a political party that is less than 2 years old and formed with a very narrow set of agendas that deal with intellectual property rights.

Personally, I think that it is great that a political party is able to ride on an intellectual property platform. Obviously, the recent spec-trial of The Pirate Bay helped boost their cause. As a result, they are currently the second largest political party in Sweden and their youth wing is the largest in Sweden. While most people may argue that they are a fringe party, they are a fringe party which has accomplished a lot – more than most other older mainstream political parties.

Personally, I think that this is a great achievement. While they may not wield much power today, they’re the largest under-30 political party in the EU. This gives me hope for the future. Now, if they only opened up a branch in Malaysia.