Berlin Pirates win local election using Facebook campaign

Dear Ghazal,

the lastet blockbuster export from Sweden that hit the headlines in Germany without doubt is the Pirates Party. At the recent elections to the Berlin municipal gouvernment they surprised everybody as soon as the ballots were  open and the first estimates saw them appoaching 10% of the votes. Although the final confirmed number was fixed at 8.9%, this guaranteed them 15 seats in the Senat of Berlin, that until recently was dominated by the social democrates, conservative christian democrates, liberals and the left party. 

This is how the New York Times describes the members of the Pirates Party: "With laptops open like shields against the encroaching cameramen, the young men resembled Peter Pan’s Lost Boys more than Captain Hook’s buccaneers when they were introduced Monday as Berlin’s newest legislators: They are the members of the Pirate Party."

This landslide change in the political spectrum of the german capital demonstrates, that the power of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter or Google+ is not limitted to political movements in the arab world.