By storming into its second state parliament, Germany’s Pirate party has shown it is no flash in the pan but a powerful force in a fast-changing political landscape, analysts and media said on Monday. After stunning Germany in September by winning seats in the Berlin regional parliament, the Pirates, who campaign for more transparency in politics and Internet freedom, again tasted success in the tiny industrial state of Saarland. By capturing 7.4 percent of the vote, they claimed fourth place in Sunday’s election, eclipsing the more mainstream Greens and obliterating the pro-business FDP, which governs with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party at the federal level. The Pirates, whom national surveys also put at around seven percent, have now shown they appeal not just to Berlin’s notoriously leftist voters, said Nils Diederich, political scientist at the city’s Free University. “I thought the Pirates were a big-city phenomenon. I am a bit surprised by their success in Saarland,” he told AFP. The Pirates themselves put their success down to the fact that alternative parties were failing to inspire voters. “The other parties paint a very poor picture,” said Michael Hilberer, a Pirate politician from Saarland. And Sebastian Nerz, the head of the Pirates at federal level, was already eyeing two bigger regional elections in May, saying the Saarland result was a “positive signal” for votes in Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia. Polls show that the Pirate party, whose top candidates are often in their 20s and 30s, are appealing to a new generation. Among first-time voters in the Saarland election, they came second. Founded in Berlin in 2006, based on the model of a similar party in Sweden, the German Pirates are criticised for a lack of substance on the key issues. They focus on sensitive issues such as data protection and copyright policy and seek to woo voters by promoting more transparency in politics, using social networks such as Twitter to send out comments during private meetings and encouraging voters to suggest their own policies.
