p2pnet news view | P2P | Politics:- The lamescream mainstream media are largely ignoring the fact an upstart political party which didn’t even exist three years ago managed to nonetheless gain an important seat in the new European Parliament.

Unsurprisingly, the press corpse is/are also trying to pretend the Net doesn’t exist.

But, “If tech-savvy campaigning helped power Barack Obama to the White House, the election of Sweden’s Pirate Party in Europe signals that Internet and related privacy issues are political drivers for young voters,” notes Agence France-Presse, going on the party has attracted, “largely young, tech-literate males angered by controversial laws adopted in the country that criminalised filesharing and authorised monitoring of emails”.

Its membership trebled within a week after a Stockholm court in April sentenced The Pirate Bay four Swedes to a year in jail, says the story.

Now, “With 23.6 percent of votes among under 30s, and 70 percent of them male, according to pollsters, the party has leapt from nowhere to the top of the table among a generation broadly characterised by political apathy,” it says, quoting PP leader Rick Falkvinge as saying

“The old politicians don’t understand. They see these issues as an isolated problem — they function far from the keyboard, and are not (digitally) connected.”

If the Swedish PP party hadn’t been on the ballot paper, “I simply wouldn’t have voted,” AFP has 29-year-old website developer Daniel Wijk, saying, adding:

“These questions of protection of privacy and Internet freedom are what motivate me,” he added, articulating his anger at ‘policing’ via modern communications technologies.”

Meanwhile, and not at all incidentally, the Pirate Party, with sister parties in 20 countries, and which also had candidates in Poland and Germany, is now set to start up in Canada.

Click here for details.

Definitely stay tuned.

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Agence France-Presse – Sweden’s political pirates signal internet’s election power, June 9, 2009
start up in Canada – Pirate Party of Canada, June 9, 2009