Pirates meet to prepare for election

Because of their limited experience with parliamentary work, around 140 members from all over germany played out at a meeting in essen on saturday what could be in store for a pirate faction in the bundestag. It wasn’t about positions on content, but about practical issues such as the integration and payment of academic staff, transparency between the parliamentary group, the party and the public, or the way opinions are formed. All results are made public on the internet via the so-called "pirate pad.

Pollsters note a loss of significance for the party. "We are currently registering a significant decline for the pirate party in our polls," the head of the elections research group, matthias jung, told the berlin newspaper "tagesspiegel" (saturday). The success of the pirate party is based primarily on protest and the character of the new party. The core electorate is around three percent.

According to the polls, however, the pirates still have a good chance of entering the bundestag in 2013. The institutes see it between 6 and 7.5 percent. "It’s always about the 5 plus x," said pirate spokesman uwe stein, referring to the five percent hurdle. "We have also seen the high values very skeptically. At least we are not nervous."

In the "unperfekthaus" in essen, the pirate party agreed to ask more small questions in the state parliaments in the future, which the state governments must answer. "This is a sharp sword of opposition work. Basically, these are instant petitions that we can use to make politics interesting," said one party member. North rhine-westphalia state party leader joachim paul (55), who already has experience in the state parliament, said: "the exciting thing is that we can link the factions and the grassroots in this way."

The meeting was organized as a "barcamp", where no binding decisions were planned. A "barcamp" is a loose gathering of working groups that discuss issues without draft resolutions with a completely open result. The central question at this "barcamp": "what do the pirates want to do differently than other parties??" said pirate political leader johannes ponader.