Traditionally Israel has had numerous different parties participating in their elections (in 2013 there were 32). This made the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) raise the threshold from 2% to 3.25% a year ago. In December 2014 the government was dissolved and called for new elections on 17 March 2015. The new limits didn’t deter that many parties from participating, 25 political parties ran for these 2015 elections.

PPIL  took part in the elections but only as a protest against the political system and the increase of the threshold. Their campaign video calls for voters to put their vote as a literal “white note” (one that will be shown in results, not like a blank vote) in protest against the new threshold.

PPIL received 0.02% of the vote, 895 votes in total. This was a decrease from the 0.07% they received in the 2013 elections.

Many people in Israel feel that the political system doesn’t represent their opinions or their views. So we want to put new blood into the system and right now what they’re doing is the opposite. They’re making the electoral threshold percentage higher. They’re making it bigger parties who have more internal constraints in passing laws and voting. And we want to see a more colorful Knesset with more debate and more people from all types of populations here. -Noam Kozar, Israel Pirate Party spokesperson

As some might be aware Israel has two competing Pirate Parties. One is called Pirate Party Israel and the other the Israel Pirate Party. The first seems to be more focused on entering the Knesset whilst the latter seems to be more activist oriented, launching drones against biometric database laws and “Occupy wifi” actions. This latter one, the Israel Pirate Party, is still a collective rather than a registered party. They were planning to run together with an official party on a joint list for the scheduled 2017 elections but did not have time to organize that when they government fell apart and extra elections where organized suddenly.

About Josef Ohlsson Collentine

I’m a dual citizen (American/Swede) and try to integrate my reflections from a more global perspective if possible. I’m the organizational leader for Pirate Times and work actively to strengthen the pirate movement through this work as well as being the international contact for Piratpartiet (PPSE). Elected board member of PPSE for 2015-2018.
If you would like to ask me something I speak English, Swedish and Spanish. Find me on the links below

 

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Traditionally Israel has had numerous different parties participating in their elections (in 2013 there were 32). This made the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) raise the threshold from 2% to 3.25% a year…