
General Elections 2016 in Iceland - fnordsensei
http://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/elections2016/
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SRSposter
I hope this will lead to increased transparency and knowledge of information
technology in other nations if Iceland can be a good example.

~~~
jacquesm
More likely outcome: parties in other countries scrambling to figure out how
they can make sure a repeat doesn't happen _without_ any improvements in
transparency.

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vedranm
I find Falkvinge's libertarianism[1, 2] much more compatible with the idea of
a pirate party than direct democracy; democracy can outvote individual freedom
and create a majority rule over an individual[3]. Other pirate parties are a
good example of how the core principles can get outvoted and diluted with off-
topic issues.

In 2015 Pirate Party of Iceland overthrew the blasphemy laws[41, which is a
great success. I honestly hope they do not take the way of the modern left and
introduce the concept of "hate speech" which limits free speech to only ideas
the ruling group likes. It has happened over and over.

Still, I see this victory as a positive move. I hope the party will succeed in
passing a meaningful copyright and patent reform.

[1] [https://falkvinge.net/](https://falkvinge.net/)

[2]
[https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/](https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/)

[3] [https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-
thiel/educatio...](https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-
thiel/education-libertarian)

[4] [https://www.rt.com/news/271645-iceland-pirates-blasphemy-
law...](https://www.rt.com/news/271645-iceland-pirates-blasphemy-law/)

~~~
avar
The party's main policy for this election isn't to try to enact direct
democracy. It's something they have as part of their core policy[1]. You can
read about what they want to accomplish in the shorter term here[2].

They'd like to sensibly work towards more self-determination and greater
direct participation in the government, not try to establish direct voting on
every issue and abolish parliament.

I think you're mistaken about more direct democracy being some easy part to
tyranny. Right now if the majority in Iceland wanted to say, completely
restrict freedom of speech, this would just be the main issue in the next
election. Some tyrannical party would get voted into power and they'd make it
the law. No direct democracy needed.

Of course there's something to be said about the moderating influence of the
time delay required for that, but there's other ways to achieve that.

I think you're missing what a moderating influence it can be for a society to
feel like they're directly involved in decision making, and how that could be
an even bigger moderating influence than directly removing power from the
population.

[1] [http://piratar.is/en/core-policy/](http://piratar.is/en/core-policy/)

[2] [http://piratar.is/en/election-
manifesto-2016/](http://piratar.is/en/election-manifesto-2016/)

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avar
Forming a government is going to be especially tricky. The government
collapsed due to corruption revealed by the Panama Papers.

The previously governing parties are the Independence Party & Progressive
Party, both of whom had ministers exposed by the papers.

They don't have enough of a following to form a government on their own.

The Left-Green Movement & Pirate Party say it's out of the question to be in
government with those two.

The new Regeneration party, which is a new party which split off from the
Independence Party. They don't want a coalition with the governing parties.

Negotiations are actively under way, the Regeneration party is in a key
negotiating position.

~~~
Normal_gaussian
As someone with no skin in the game, this is a super interesting result.

    
    
        Ind(21) + Pro(8) + Reg(7) = 36
        Ind(21) + Pro(8) + Bri(4) = 33
        Ind(21) + Pro(8) + Soc(3) = 32
    
        Ind(21) + Reg(7) + Bri(4) = 32
    
        Lef(10) + Pir(10) + Reg(7) + Bri(4) + Soc(3) = 34
    

If Independence Party and Progressive Party won't form with each other either
then that essentially guarantees the Regeneration party and the Bright Future.

Of course, as coalition governments around the world have shown, parties lie
about what they will do initially in order to get a better deal. Basic
negotiation strategy.

~~~
avar
Yeah it's going to be really interesting whatever happens.

As a point of clarification. The Independence Party and Progressive Party
would be happy to form a government with each other, they think that overall
they did great, and downplay the corruption that brought down the government.

But they don't have enough following to do it on their own, and all the other
parties they could form with have made commitments of not forming with those
two together.

Although both were deeply involved in the corruption that brought down the
government, the PM was from the Progressives, and it lost a massive following
in the election while the Independence party gained following. So it's
politically untenable to work with the Progressives, but some parties might be
willing to work with the Independence party.

    
    
        > Ind(21) + Reg(7) + Bri(4) = 32
    

This would be possible, and Bright Future isn't ruling it out:
[http://stundin.is/frett/bjort-framtid-utilokar-ekki-
haegri-s...](http://stundin.is/frett/bjort-framtid-utilokar-ekki-haegri-
stjorn/)

But a one party majority in parliament would be really precarious, and it
would be very interesting to see what concessions have to get made.

    
    
        > Lef(10) + Pir(10) + Reg(7) + Bri(4) + Soc(3) = 34
    

This would also be a really interesting combination. The Regeneration party
says they don't want to go into government with the Pirates, but who knows how
much of this is political posturing. I don't think they have any inherent
clash of political issues they couldn't both get over given some negotiation.

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Kiro
I hope they don't get down the route of the fiasco that is the Swedish Pirate
Party.

~~~
rpwverheij
what happened there?

~~~
SRSposter
they got more busy talking about men who spread their legs on the train than
actual politics

------
rpwverheij
Great to see TPP get a significant place in national politics. Im quite
interested to see how the coalition talks will go. Their intended colaboration
of the TPP, the Left-Green Movement, Bright Future, and Social Democratic
Alliance is not going to work. The central right Independence Party is the
biggest party so I guess it will probably be the first one to attempt to form
a coalition. If they join with the new and also right-wing Regeneration they
will have 28 of the required 32 seats, and then it's a question who else would
join. Not sure if TPP would want to join two right wing parties? TPP and the
left green movement have 20 seats together, so they'd need the Independency
party (unlikely together with the Left green I suppose) or 2 other parties.

~~~
avar
If you must turn "The Pirate Party" into an acronym just use "PP", this use of
"TPP" is highly confusing, since nobody uses it for the Pirate Party, and it's
easily confused with the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

~~~
pvaldes
Better not. PP is taken yet for People's Party, present in a lot of european
countries as E(uropean)PP and opposite to the pirate party. Would be much more
confusing.

A better alternative could be to use unicode alt+9760

