A political party campaigning against tough laws on Internet piracy has won a seat in the European Parliament. The Pirate Party took 7.1 percent of the votes in Sweden, picking up one seat under the proportional representation system.

The party received a major boost in support after opposition to the conviction of four men behind the Pirate Bay torrent site. The group was sentenced to a year in jail and hit with hefty fines after charges relating to copyright infringement. The Pirate Party also campaigned for greater privacy rights among internet users.

The AFP news agency quotes one electoral analyst as saying the Pirate Party succeeded by focusing solely on a single topic. By not having a stance on other issues, such as the economy, it avoided alienating voters from different political persuasions. It also appears to have attracted particularly strong support among younger voters who might normally not take part in elections, earning more votes from those aged under 30 than any other party. In total the party received 214,313 votes, beating out all but the two major parties in Swedish politics.

Such tactics would likely not have won a seat under the ‘first past the post’ system used for most domestic elections which require an outright win, but was sufficient in the European Parliament system where areas have multiple seats, shared out roughly in proportion to the share of the votes each party achieves. The Pirate Party’s seat will be taken up by its deputy chairman Christian Engstrom.

The party may wind up with two representatives in the parliament. The countries of the EU are currently debating reforms to the system which, if passed, would give extra seats in the parliament to some countries. It appears that one of the extra seats allocated to Sweden would go to the Pirate Party.

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Entry was posted on Monday, June 8th, 2009 at 3:39 pm under Piracy, Politics.

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