Opinion polls have predicted the Pirate Party’s victory in the recently held elections in Iceland, where an estimated 22.6 percent of the voters showed support for the pirates.
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It will also mean the party’s leader, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, one of two Pirates elected at Iceland’s last election in 2012, will have gone from WikiLeaks activist to minister in six short years.
The latest polls have the Independence Party slightly ahead of the Pirate Party, but the Pirates have been trending upwards while Independence is trending down – and the Progressives have plummeted. They’ve dropped a bit since then, but they could pick up between 18 to 20 new seats in Iceland’s parliament if these poll numbers hold up in their election October 29.
Over the years, when I had been talking to people about the Pirate Party, most responses revolved around “they too have no ideology” or “it’s just another radical protest party”. “That accounts for a large chunk of the support that the Pirate Party has been getting”. This weekend in Reykjavik, Iceland’s Pirates will welcome the support of Pirate Party representatives from over 30 other countries.
For the first time, it could form part of a ruling coalition, as many voters remain bitter about the 2008 financial crisis and the perceived arrogance of an elite class.
As the public lost faith in the policies of the right-wing government between 2013 and 2015, the three Pirate MPs gained considerably more influence in parliament.
Scottish politicians have launched an unprecedented charm offensive towards Iceland in recent months with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon meeting the country’s president, prime minister, and foreign secretary.
These efforts to ensure people are consulted on the issues which affect them personally could bring benefits to society in Iceland, and in other countries, if similar efforts are repeated around the world.
The Pirates promise to implement a new national constitution – partly crowdsourced through a social-media ideas campaign – that would introduce direct democracy, subject the workings of government to more scrutiny and place the country’s natural resources under public ownership.
“We do not define ourselves as left or right but rather as a party that focuses on the systems”, she said according to the Guardian.
The party hang a skull-and-crossbones flag from their headquarters, are anti-corruption and set policy through online polls.
Hanna Sigurdardottir, an unemployed 59-year-old, said the Pirate Party was “an interesting and refreshing experiment” – but she hadn’t decided whether to vote for them.
The final straw came when the Progressive Party’s prime minister, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, was caught up in the Panama Papers scandal.
The Icelandic Pirate Party is already making history.
The Pirates have been the main channel for distrust in mainstream politics in Iceland, which has just over 330,000 people.
“People want real changes and they understand that we have to change the systems, we have to modernize how we make laws”, she added in her interview with the Washington Post.
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If so, “Iceland’s position being in North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the Europe Economic Area could have major implications on a foreign policy level”, Mr Fontaine said.
