The Pirate Party, a Swedish political party associated with a bunch of people currently under indictment for large-scale copyright piracy, failed to win any seats in yesterday’s general election in Sweden.
The Pirate Party hoped its “hey, stealing stuff is okay” message would win it enough votes to put a member or two into the Swedish parliament under the proportional representation rules. Given the narrow split between right and left, even a single elected Pirate might have been able to extort significant concessions from a coalition government.
Fortunately there were many other nuts and flakes dividing up the crackpot vote. Thanks to the famous rationality of those dour, serious Swedes, they attracted few votes either individually or as a bloc. No pirate will cruise into the new parliament.
