<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br><div><div>On 09.03.2010, at 20:45, Reinier Bakels wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div bgcolor="#ffffff"><div><font color="#0000ff" size="2" face="Comic Sans MS">I'd like to know how national parties are organised. I assume that in most countries only registered associations can register as political parties, like in the Netherlands? In particular I am interested in the *internal* democracy of national PP's. Do you adopt a one-man-one-vote system, or a tiered system?</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="2" face="Comic Sans MS">Some people argue that a tiered system is indispensable for defense against "troll" attacks (e.g. a major GEMA delegation in Germany becoming PPDE member - so that there is a pro-copyright majority), but - at least under (even "default") Dutch association law, the board decides who can be a member - and will not accept memebrship applications from trolls.</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="2" face="Comic Sans MS"></font> </div><div><font color="#0000ff" face="Comic Sans MS">I believe that direct democracy is indispensable for a political organisation. Do you?</font></div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="2" face="Comic Sans MS"></font> </div><div><font color="#0000ff" size="2" face="Comic Sans MS">reinier</font></div></div></span></blockquote></div><br><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Geneva" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">I can elaborate on our situation here in Germany. </span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Geneva" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Geneva" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">Legal: we have a "law about the political parties" wich regulates a lot of aspects of a party organisation and mandates democratic principles in the inner organisation. It does not denying the tiered delegates systems, in fact all other political parties have multi-tiered delegates systems over 4 levels (county -> district -> federate state -> state). A political party does not need a registering as a juridical person - it becomes an "unincorporated association" by signing its statutes at the founding assembly. It can be registered by registering with the registration office and become an "incorporated society" but this is not a necessity. It will get a recognition as a political party by declaring its will for running in elections and applying at the election supervisor, who (after a check of the statutes for compliance with the law about the political parties) admits or denies the accreditation for elections. (Parties like the PP-DE, who are not represented in parliaments needs to collect suporters signatures to demonstrate it has support from the population)</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Geneva" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Geneva" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">Democracy - right now we have about 12k party members in Germany and the current statutes do not have a tiered delegates system. A voting right is tied to paid memberships dues (currently 36 Euro per year), no requirements for a length of the membership. The party programme and the statutes changes needs to be issued by the general party assembly with at least 2/3rd of the votes. The proposals for changes need to be submitted 4 weeks in advance to a general assembly. </span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Geneva" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Geneva" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">The danger of an under-run by some political fraction is possible on the level of Party Officers, not so much on the level of the party programme. And frankly, no system can eliminate the "danger" that someone might be different opinion and will try to communicate this. </span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Geneva" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Geneva" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">P.S: the current statues can be found here: <a href="http://wiki.piratenpartei.de/Satzung">http://wiki.piratenpartei.de/Satzung</a></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Geneva" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Geneva" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Geneva" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">Best Regards, </span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Geneva" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Geneva" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">Gregory Engels</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Geneva" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">International Coordinator</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Geneva" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">Pirate Party of Germany</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Geneva" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"> </span></font></div></body></html>