14 DAY TRIAL // Despite all the support coming from the world’s most popular torrent site, the Pirate Party didn’t really attract a lot of voters these past few days as the elections for the European Parliament raged on.
In fact, the Pirate Party managed to lose one of the two seats it had in the European Parliament following this year’s elections and it’s thanks to voters in Germany.
This past week, people from all over Europe went voting to choose their representatives for the European Parliament. There are several local Pirate Parties in European countries, and they’ve all been supported by The Pirate Bay via ads posted on the site and localized appropriately.
Back in 2009, the Pirate Party managed to gain two seats at the European Parliament and it was hoping to improve this year, but things didn’t really go as planned.
While it was close to gaining a seat in the Czech Republic, it only obtained 4.78 percent of the total votes, a little under the 5% needed to get a seat in the European Parliament. In Germany, however, it managed to obtain a seat that will go to Julia Reda, a 27-year-old who will represent the Pirate Party in Brussels for the next five years.
In Sweden, the country of The Pirate Party, it only managed to attract 2.2 percent of the total votes, down from the 7.1 percent it managed to get during the previous elections.
In Finland, the Pirate Bay Co-Founder Peter Sunde participated in the elections, hoping to win a seat and bring his vision to the European Parliament, but it only managed to attract 0.7 percent of the votes, which is far from being enough to win.
“As a movement, we went from two seats to one, being ridiculously close to three seats,” Rick Falkvinge, founder of the first Pirate Party, told TorrentFreak. “Still, there’s no points for a near-hit in any game. The most important thing was that there would be Pirates in the European Parliament after this election day, and we achieved that. The story continues, and there’s representation on the inside.”
He is referring here to the fact that in Luxembourg, the Pirate Party also managed to obtain 4.24 percent of the total votes. While this may not bring the Party a seat in the European Parliament, it does mean that funding from Europe will continue to support them for the years to come.