Chairperson Jonna Purojärvi Newspaper Purje Membership 4 065 | Founded 24 May 2008 Youth wing Pirate Youth | |
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Vice-chairperson Petrus Pennanen
Tapani Karvinen
Arto Lampila | ||
The Pirate Party of Finland (Finnish: Piraattipuolue, Swedish: Piratpartiet) is a registered political party in Finland. The group currently has around 4 065 members. The chairman of the party is Jonna Purojärvi. The party is a member of Pirate Parties International.
Contents
History
In January 2008, Matti Hiltunen registered the domain piraattipuolue.fi and set up a BBS on the site. In May 2008, about 50 founding members of the party held the founding assembly in Tampere. In September 2008 the party started to collect the 5,000 supporter cards needed to officially register the party. The party's goal was to take part in the 2009 European Parliamentary election. The supporter cards were collected by 1 June 2009, too late for the elections. The party was officially registered on 13 August 2009.
In October 2009 the Pirate Party took part in the special municipal election of Loviisa with 1 candidate, but did not win a seat. The party's first major election was the Finnish parliamentary election in 2011 with 127 candidates in 11 constituencies, gathering 0.5% of votes and becoming the largest party with no Parliament seats. In the 2014 European Parliament election it gathered 12,378 votes (0.7%). In the Finnish parliamentary election in 2015 the party got 25,105 or 0,8% of total votes, and was left without seats in the parliament. Consequently, Ministry of Justice decided to take off Pirate Party and 5 others from its list of political parties due to lack of confidence in parliamentary voting for two elections. The party collected again the needed 5,000 supporter cards and was registered on 6 June 2016.
Political goals
The party aims in its political agenda to develop democracy, safeguard civil rights and increased transparency in politics. It wants to free information and culture from prohibitive restrictions and review the utility of the patent system, all while increasing privacy and freedom of speech. The party supports a basic income and wants to abolish daylight saving time.
Youth wing
The party has a youth organisation, the Pirate Youth (Finnish: Piraattinuoret). It was founded on 5 February 2009 in Helsinki. It has an upper age-limit of 28 years. Membership of Piraattinuoret is free of charge.