Wikileaks: "AARGH! SWEDISH PIRATES SET SAIL FOR BRUSSELS"

A Wikileaked cable out of Embassy Stockholm from June 2009 provides a summary of the results from European Parliament election held in Sweden earlier that month, and emphasizes the importance of the Pirate Party's showing in the election.  With the subject heading, "AARGH! SWEDISH PIRATES SET SAIL FOR BRUSSELS," the cable states that the Pirate Party, along with the Greens and the Liberal Party, were the "big winners" of the election, and notes that the Pirate Party garnered "support from young voters unhappy with the government’s decision to shut down The Pirate Bay, a file-sharing bit torrent site that had become a target of the Motion Picture Association of America."

The cable reports that the Pirate Party campaigned on a platform calling for copyright and patent reform and opposing a wiretapping law that had been proposed by Swedish security services.  It goes on to state that the party attracted "young voters angry over the guilty verdict in the Pirate Bay trial, the unpopular EU Ipred directive, and new national laws criminalizing file sharing and authorizing monitoring of emails."  In addition, the cable underscores the Pirate Party's sense that "the classic political right-left scale is outdated."

Interestingly, the analysis provided in this cable would seem to support that proposition.  Considering the possible side-effects of the Pirate Party's sudden, and surprising, electoral victory, the cable states that the Pirate Party's success likely "reduced the chances for the far-right nationalist Sweden Democrats to gain representation in the EP," as the Pirate Party draws its support from "the same voter base – young men with mistrust of politicians."  

See a cache copy of the cable at Cable Search.