Pirate party raid on German politics
Pirates are capturing Germany's political system.
The party with the outlaw name started as a marginal club of computer nerds and hackers demanding online freedom, but its appeal as an anti-establishment movement has lured many young voters to the ballot boxes, catapulting it into two state parliaments in less than a year.
The all-volunteer Pirates offer little ideology and focus on promoting their flagship policies of near-total transparency and an unrestricted Internet. But polls show them as the country's third-strongest political force, leapfrogging over more established parties. The tremendous success has doubled the Pirates' membership to 25,000, but it also has handed them a crucial challenge set to dominate its convention: A party founded as a rebellious upstart must reckon with its new political power and its promise of a voice for all its members.
