Dutch Pirate Party Triples Support, But Misses Parliament

Pirate Parties

In elections this week, the Dutch Pirate Party failed to enter Parliament. However, the party still pulled off a tremendous feat in tripling its vote count across the country.

As the votes have been counted in the Netherlands from the September 12 elections, it is clear that the Dutch Piratenpartij got 0.33% of the votes. This is not enough for a seat, but it is a tripling from the last result of 0.11%.

Tripling support at that level, going from some 10,000 votes to some 30,000 votes, is an extraordinary feat. It is the hardest passage to pass as a new party: the normal “tripling” of support happens when going from 1 to 3 supporters, or possibly from 2 to 6. At the tens-of-thousands level, I would argue that this particular growth phase is the most difficult, as it’s just below the critical mass for public awareness and yet the largest necessary growth in absolute numbers.

The Dutch political system has long meant that the Dutch Piratenpartij is a dark horse in the race for the first national parliamentary pirate seat. Its political system is one that favors dark horses and political challengers. Unlike Sweden, where you need 4% of the national vote to take a single seat, or Germany, where you need 5%, there is no such barrier in the Netherlands. The first parliamentary seat is awarded at about two-thirds of a percent of the national vote.

However, it is not all that simple. Challenger parties with a real shot on Parliament get tremendous amounts of media spotlights in countries like Sweden and Germany, judging from the pirate breakthroughs there. In the Netherlands, however, the people are so used to small parties in parliament with just one or a handful of seats, that seeing a new challenger poll at parliamentary levels barely produces a newsblip at all. Therefore, the Dutch Piratenpartij had no significant help from the media spotlights in achieving this feat, but had to pull their own weight entirely in tripling to 0.33%.

And let’s not forget that the same rules apply in the Netherlands as in all other countries – the same instant you start taking votes in a measureable amount over the old-guard politicians’ running the copyright industry’s and the big brother industry’s errands, policy starts shifting towards a better direction. There’s absolutely nothing that gets politicians’ attention faster than the prospect of kicking them out of office.

Based on this trajectory, the Dutch Piratenpartij gets in, come their next election. Then again, so does the German Piratenpartei. Race on.

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About The Author: Rick Falkvinge

Rick is the founder of the first Pirate Party and is a political evangelist, traveling around Europe and the world to talk and write about ideas of a sensible information policy. He has a tech entrepreneur background and loves whisky.

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Pieter

September 16, 2012 - 13:35

I was very disappointed that we didn’t get a seat, but as you say tripling the number of votes is a remarkable achievement. In the school elections (students who cannot vote yet) the Piratenpartij won 14 out of 150 seats, so the future looks bright!

The reason we missed out on a seat was, in my opinion, two-fold: 1) no attention from main stream political media, and 2) the end race between labour (PvdA) and conservatives (VVD), which crushed the smaller parties.

Still, with the adoption of PP ideas by mainstream parties and the epic loss of Geert Wilders, this was on the whole a good result for the Netherlands (and Europe).

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September 16, 2012 - 13:38

I forgot to mention that Dirk Poot, the party leader, did a fantastic job!

jimbo

September 16, 2012 - 18:28

with the extraordinary rulings concerning copyright issues coming out in Holland including the recent ruling on linking, there needs to be some serious changes. unfortunately, although i agree that ‘nothing that gets politicians’ attention faster than the prospect of kicking them out of office’, there is also nothing that makes them fight all the harder, using any and all methods they can think of, to keep their job. that includes spreading more and bigger lies and bullshit than they were previously and blaming everyone else, the ‘new kids on the block’ in particular, for what is wrong with everything, everywhere.

Joris

September 17, 2012 - 11:58

Unfortunately it wasn’t ‘tremendous’ at all. Three times almost no votes is still almost votes. I’m dissapointed, but hopefully they will appeal to more younger voters at the next election, who are too young to vote at this moment.

4.1

Emil Kirkegaard

September 18, 2012 - 15:45

It’s not zero votes. In fact, going from “10,000 votes to some 30,000 votes” is quite a lot. In Denmark, one cannot even get on the ballot without some 20,000 written signatures. If we had that in Denmark, we might actually get some attention.

Emil Kirkegaard
Board of directors, Piratpartiet (Denmark)

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