30.8.2006
Another membership landmark for Pirate Party
The Swedish Pirate Party has reached another membership landmark after passing the membership of the Green Party recently. With its 8521 members PirateParty is now larger than
Moderate Youth League (Moderata Ungdomsförbundet), the youth organization of Moderaterna, the second largest party in Sweden. The Moderate Youth League was founded in 1934 as Young Swedes (Ungsvenskarna) and most top Moderate Party politicians have started their political career in its ranks, including the present chairman of the Moderate Party, Fredrik Reinfeldt. The next membership challenge for the pirates will be to reach the Left Party with its estimated 11.000 members, presently sitting in the governing coalition with Social Democrats and the Green Party.
The growing membership of Pirate Party is in obvious conflict with the 'official' opinion polls that keep showing marginally small support for the Pirate Party. This has made part of the press doubt Pirate Party's membership figures not being somehow real. But a closer scrutiny reveals that there is little room for errors in party's membership figure: the total member count is a sum of local figures coming from over 250 electorate districts, and each district head can check the validity of their own component in the sum anytime. No discrepancies have been reported by any of them. So if the membership figure seems factual and is in conflict with the opinion polls, then maybe the opinion polls are wrong? In 18 days we will know.