Election Day

Today, 27 April 2013, is the big day. If events go as expected then, for the first time in the short seven year history of the Pirate Movement, Pirates will be elected as representatives to a national parliament – Iceland’s. The weather today is overcast and raining with an expected highest temperature of 8° C. Hopefully this will not deter the young Pirate demographic from going out to vote.

Final Campaigning Actions and a Visit to an Icelandic Banana Plantation

The last leaflets have been printed and distributed along with some stickers and buttons. The final interviews on radio and television. The Pirate times accompanied Smári McCarthy and Bjorn Thor Johannensson to the south coastal region for a radio interview. On the way we visited the banana plantation run by the agricultural university. We were allowed to bring some bananas to distribute to our Pirate friends and some rather astonished tourists. Birgitta headed off to do a last television interview and other Pirates went to talk to people on a one to one basis.

The Results

Polling starts at 09:00 local time and ends at 22:00.  All times are the same as UTC and Greenwich Mean Time. The first results are expected at around 23:00  and the final results about 8 hours after that. Here is a tool you can use to find out what these times convert to in your country.

The Pirate times will be keeping you up to date in real time over the Pirate Times site with Liveticker, Twitter ( hashtags #ppint #iceland) and over Facebook.

While you are waiting for the results you can listen to the song PPIS has adopted as a sort of theme song.

A Better Iceland

As we mentioned yesterday the Icelandic Pirates have developed something new in the field of direct democracy. A new web application will allow Icelanders to submit matters to the new parliament through their Pirate representatives whether they voted for them or not and even if they have no Pirate MPs in their constituency. Betra Ísland (Better Iceland) will let citizens raise matters of concern and these will be taken up by the Pirates in parliament. As one commenter said in response to a news article published online. “Not only do the Pirates keep their electoral promises, they do so before they are elected.”

The Lizards are Taking Over

The opponents of the Pirates are getting desperate  In an attack from the press, through misquoting one of the candidates, the Pirates have been accused of supporting the conspiracy theory that the world is being ruled by lizard like aliens. In response Birgitta said that she had written poems on chameleons and therefore  the claim is correct and that she is, indeed, a lizard person.

 Featured image: The restaurant where the Pirates will meet to watch the results come in. CC BY-SA Pirate Times

About Andrew Reitemeyer

I joined the Pirate Party of Lower Saxony in Germany in April 2012, once I found out that non citizens were welcome to join and become active members of the Party.
I joined the Pirate Times soon after it was started as a proof reader and am now an editor and author. Since then I have returned to my native New Zealand and joined the Pirate Party of New Zealand.
Politically I come from the libertarian left and have, up to now, not regarded any political party as having a solution for the democratic deficit that envelops the world. With the advent of the Pirate Party, which truly embraces grass roots democracy, I have found a political home. The Pirate Times is a way I can contribute to furthering the Pirate Movement around the world.
Skype: frithogar

 

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Election Day Today, 27 April 2013, is the big day. If events go as expected then, for the first time in the short seven year history of the Pirate Movement,…