The Polish Pirate Party has decided to go to the elections for European Parliament (EP). The base for the Polish Pirates’ programme will be the Common European Elections Programme (CEEP), that is being adopted by most European Pirate parties. The pirate candidate in the Warsaw district, Zbigniew Łukasiak, pointed out that he thinks Polish Pirates should put some emphasis on the Freedom of Information acts, ways to make them more effective and also on fighting the efforts to limit these acts.

The Polish Pirate Party has decided to participate in the EP elections in a coalition with Direct Democracy Party and Libertarians. Łukasiak said that the programs and values of their coalition partners are very close to Pirate values and that is why a natural coalition was formed. Direct Democracy declares themselves a ‘technical party’ with just one goal: more direct democracy in Poland. As for Libertarians, the Polish Pirates agree with them on many points (for example on the value of personal liberty). But Łukasiak also acknowledged that Polish Pirates are perhaps not as ‘laissez-faire’ as the Libertarians.

The candidates for the EP elections will be chosen in two phases. In the first phase, where the candidates for the first places on the lists will be chosen, there will be a ‘citizen primary elections‘. It means that every Polish citizen with passive election right could participate in these primaries, which has resulted in several candidates for the list from outside of the three parties. 

Polish Pirates are aware of possible problems with this voting formula (for example, there could be some people trolling the elections or other parties could hijack the elections). The decision to have open elections and to break the ‘partocracy’ was made by Direct Democracy, thus the Polish Pirates had to make a compromise with this. They believe that Direct Democracy will run the primaries in a fair way.

The second part of the EP list election will be restricted only to party members. In this phase, further places on the lists will be voted on.

Featured image: CC BY Megafoto

About Matic Urbanija

International Coordinator, Pirate Party of Slovenia/Contributor, Pirate Times/blog: maticurbanija.wordpress.com

 

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The Polish Pirate Party has decided to go to the elections for European Parliament (EP). The base for the Polish Pirates’ programme will be the Common European Elections Programme (CEEP), that…