This is pretty important for the pirate party. Nordrhrein Westphalen is not only the largest state by population. It is also very important politically and economically. The pirates entering the state parliament at 8% will greatly solidify their political base. This will give them a much needed boost when gearing up for the general election in 2013.

Also Angela Merkel's CDU suffered a crushing defeat at only 26%, despite her "heir apparent" Norbert Röttgen running in the state. The state will now be governed by a leftwing coalition of SPD and greens. In all, this is a good day for the national opposition in germany. Germany is shifting to the left, along with the rest of europe.

Saying that the modern SPD is leftwing is like saying that the Democrats in the USA are leftwing.

Arguably. While it is true that the SPD has departed from its roots as a socialist working class party they can still be considered "leftwing". I don't want to go into too much detail here but Hannelore Kraft has run on a pretty leftwing platform of social policy (offering free childcare, as but one example).

When compared to american politics... pretty much every german party except maybe the FDP can be considered "leftwing" or even "socialist".

> Saying that the modern SPD is leftwing

In the NRW elections, between the Linke (which are a lot more popular in the eastern part of Germany), the Pirates and the Greens there's 21.6% that's arguably further left than the SPD which, given that and the fact that it's got about 39% of the vote here, might well be considered centre-left these days when looking at the relative spectrum.

Still disappointed that same old SPD+CDU take largely the lion's share of the vote.

I mean... in a normal situation I'd consider these results very good progress, but given the absolute havoc the EU is in, I'd expect a stronger reaction to the status quo. But nope, the bipartisanship is rather solid still in Germany.

It takes Greece-style catastrophe to really shake things up, it seems.

> It takes Greece-style catastrophe to really shake things up, it seems.

Or more time. The pirates are growing, give them a few cycles. Considering that they never were in a parliament in the first place, 8% is impressive. The FDP, who have been existing for 60 years and have been parts of the goverment countless times, also didnt manage to get more than 8%, so 8% is perfectly fine. The greens are oscillating around 5% for 30 years now.

Make no mistake - of those 8% at least half are protest voters who will vote for whatever new party they see as anti-establishment. The pirates will lose those when they first become part of a government and have to do compromises, or when a newer anti-establishment party appears, whichever happens first. The pirates may still grow a little, but then they will see a sharp drop in votes, unless they can achieve some truly spectacular successes. How the deal with that drop will determine whether they have long term viability.

I feel said to say it, but this is exactly what happened with the Pirate Party of Sweden when another certain controversial party started getting traction. One could hope the situation turns out to be different in Germany, though.

Most people in Germany aren't directly affected by the financial crisis and certainly not like the people in Greece. They have no reason to vote for an alternative party.

Which is disappointing. People only seem to react when their very own house is on fire.

Germany is reacting, if it weren't the current crisis would look like a minor annoyance.

There will be a middle-left coalition of the social democrates and the green party. The liberal party was able to recover after beeing down to 2% several weeks ago.

The Pirates once again get the chance to work on their profile from the opposition. This is a very good constellation for the Pirate Party.

where "liberal" in germany means something like "pro business". Very different from the US.

"Liberal" in Germany roughly equals "libertarian" in the US, they tend to be much more moderate, though. So it's not like they're exactly Ron Paul libertarians.

This has been a source of endless confusion for me in the past when discussing politics with american friends. Took me surprisingly long to figure it out.

Here's the decoder ring: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism

The word "liberal" over the past century has experienced so much meaning drift in the US that it is basically antithetical to the original meaning. Places where it has experience less drift will thus have an opposing meaning to the US meaning.

This is not a criticism. Meanings change over time, it's what they do.

(Incidentally, this is why it's very silly to either attack or credit political parties in the US with things they did more than about 30 years ago, or perhaps even 20. The parties have shifted around a lot and traded a lot of issues. They're dynamic coalitions of convenience, not great, century-spanning statements of ideological purity.)

Try this; socially liberal or fiscally liberal. There's also socially authoritative and fiscally authoritative.

Liberal topics; social: allowing nudity, gay marriage, hacking, etc, fiscal: lower taxes, less red tape, more corporate freedom.

Authoritative topics; social; outlawing nudity, gay marriage, hacking, etc, fiscal: more taxes, more red tape, more corporate control.

It's not unusual for people to have hybrid positions. eg an person can believe that hacking should be banned and believe in paying lower taxes.

Or a person believes hacking shouldn't be banned and believe in paying higher taxes.

Along with "more taxes, more red tape, more corporate control" one also sees things like environmental regulations. Whether supporting environmental regulations is liberal(I want the right to enjoy my back yard without smog from his car and without sludge from your factory) or authoritative(so don't pollute) is a topic that is up for debate, and shouldn't be lumped in with "corporate freedom."

I'm talking about government regulations in general. Environmental regulations are, by definition, authoritative because the government enforces that law. It's very hard to create laws, eg the right to enjoy backyard without smog, as even people breath out pollution. It could be argued that by creating a law prohibiting smog in your backyard, it's far more authoritative than a law to regulate the levels of smog.

It doesn't mean that authoritative laws are bad, really. Some laws are mildly authoritative (anti-littering) to heavily authoritative (anti-terrorism). People's positions tend to be relative to the country they're in. For example, a fiscal-centre-liberal person in USA could be seen as a fiscal-far-liberal person in France.

Since the early 20th century in the U.S. it's meant something like "social liberal", market-oriented but in favor of a welfare state, more like what the SDU is today. And the opposite of "conservative" on issues like same-sex marriage, abortion, etc. Vaguely the same meaning of "liberal" that applies to the UK's Liberal Democrats. Actually not that far off, in terms of policies, from the meaning of liberal used by the German Freiburg-school ordoliberals, and their idea of the "social market economy".

German here, I don't get why non-Germans are so excited about the success of the Pirate Party in Germany. It does not mean that Germans care strongly about copyright and patent reform, quite the opposite is the case.

According to polls >70% of the Pirate Party voters are pure protest voters who don't care what the party stands for. Well, except that they aren't Nazis or socialists (the only other anti-establishment options). Most people don't care about copyright laws at all, that's why the Pirate Party is a "safe" protest vote.

Parties that are disparaged as being the beneficiary of protest votes tend to shape the public discourse in terms of what people are protesting agains. This has already happened, copyright reform is a much more visible topic now than it used to be. I keep reading arguments I had on the internet 10 years ago rehashed (sometimes badly) in respectable newspapers.

People are at least vaguely aware of the pirate party's position, as much as there is one. If nothing else, I doubt people who are in favor of more expansive copyright would vote PP. And arguably, any anti-establishment vote, if you want to call it that way, is bound to be a vote in favor of copyright reform.

I'm surprised that there hasn't been a movement on U.S. college campuses to form Pirate Parties. Behind OWS and the Ron Paul phenomenon you'd think it'd fit right in as a grassroots youth movement.

What’s the perspective, though?

Mass protests (ala OWS) were never really a focus of the Pirate Party. They were always about direct political participation (i.e. competing in elections). That’s not so realistic in the US where majorities are necessary to win seats and offices.

The Pirate Party very clearly represents a minority and has no realistic perspective of ever representing a majority. They are also not very geographically clustered. In democracies with proportional elections that’s not so much an issue.

The Green Party in Germany very clearly also represents a minority and has no realistic perspective of ever representing the majority, nevertheless it has been phenomenally successful during the last decades, not only as a opposition party but also as a party with government participation, both on the state and federal level. (The Greens were Gerhard Schröder’s coalition partner on the federal level.)

In the US, much of this has to happen inside existing parties with a realistic perspective (consequently, parties in the US are quite a bit less organized and there is much more fierce competition inside parties). Ron Paul tries to be different within the pre-existing framework of the Republican Party. The Tea Party Movement tries to be different within the pre-existing framework of the Republican Party.

Also, remember that this is only happening in Germany. A very special set of circumstances seems to have conspired there to create that success. This isn’t even happening elsewhere in Europe (at least not yet), not even in countries with political systems very similar to that in Germany. It seems like Germany is the special case here, not so much other places.

That's largest as in most popoulos. 18 million of 82 million people. Federal elections are next year, the party is currently polling well above 5% nationwide, that's the required threshold for entering the parliament.