[pp.int.general] Results for Estonian pirates in local elections

[Märt Põder]

Hi everybody!

One month ago Estonian pirates participated in elections for the first
time. There is a Pirate Times article covering percentages of the votes by
pirate candidates and saying some positive things about the fact that we
did participate [1], but there is more to tell.

First of all the only list where Estonian pirates were involved and which
got elected was elective coalition Vabakund in second biggest city Tartu.
Vabakund got three seats of 49 in local council, and as the article rightly
states Märt Põder (me) and Raul Kübarsepp are replacement candidates if
someone from Vabakund resigns or suspends the seat. However, we have kind
of close connection to Vabakund here in Tartu and they are willing to
embrace lots of pirate stuff in the agenda too, like various things from
free software to some flavour of digital participative democracy and
general freedom of information proposals about local library, policies for
subcultures and their diversity etc. So we don't really need anybody to
resign to be involved in local politics.

Besides that, as a token of trust Vabakund offered me a position of faction
advisor which is a paid position funded by the city council. As I am a
teacher and an author of parts of our national curriculum etc I was also
appointed to represent Vabakund in education commission.

This is what positions Estonian pirates got from the elections.

But there is also something to tell about Vabakund. It's not a political
party, it's an elective coalition. So it brands itself as a grassroots
project that can involve any kind of political activists as long as they
are fine with the Vabakund manifesto [2]. In the program they state that
they "will strive to transform Tartu into a paragon of digital involvement"
[3] which means digital means of participation in politics also between the
elections. This is where they rely on the support of local pirates and
there will be projects in pirate spirit leaded by the pirates to support
that promise.

Actually Tartu is one of the few cities where election coalitions got seats
beside established political parties. And since Vabakund is a new kind of
grassroots project, lots of eyes are watching how it will manage in the
next years. Pirates have already got some positive coverage about their
involvement and probably there will be more. So generally the involvement
in Vabakund is a good step forward for the pirates to be taken as a serious
actor in Estonian politics.

That's how I feel about the result.

Is there anything similar going on in other countries?

Sincerely "etc"
Märt Põder / PP-EE member of the board

[1]
http://piratetimes.net/estonian-local-election-results-good-first-showing/
[2] http://vabakund.ee/en/manifesto
[3] http://vabakund.ee/en/programme

P. S. And thanks to the other three pirates running for Vabakund: Sven
Salumets, Heiki "Repentinus" Ojasild and Andres Laidvee.
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