The future of Polish Politics - The Polish Pirate Party

The Polish political scene will soon have a new kid on the block: the Polish Pirate Party (Partia Piratów). Once registered will join Sweden, Germany, Austria, and Spain in having a full Pirate Party.

Approximately 30% of Poland's 38 million population use the Internet. Torrent Freak Ben Jones recently talked to party founder Błażej Kaczorowski.

The following is a transcript of his interview:

TorrentFreak: The polish party was founded when exactly?

Kaczorowski: The idea of creating PP in Poland appeared 27 July 2006

TorrentFreak: And you registered this week, in court, for official political party status?

Kaczorowski: Yes, on Monday we went to court to submit all papers needed for registration. Now will will have to wait for registration but from the moment of giving papers to court we will have pre-registration status.

TorrentFreak: how long until that status is confirmed?

Kaczorowski: Depends - if everything will be ok with papers - 2 weeks

TorrentFreak: The next (European) election is going to be held in September 2009, will you be putting up candidates?

Kaczorowski: Here in Poland we have elections on 27 October but it is way to soon for us too start. The elections for Europarlament in 2009 will be probably our first elections - if our parliament will not fall apart before that date.



TorrentFreak: How many members do you currently have?

Kaczorowski: 2,000 registered on web page, 30 people actually active - numbers are small becouse we weren’t advertising ourselves a lot - we are waiting for gathering people - we needed to register first, create a new web page and then we can look for more people

TorrentFreak: What has been your biggest activity, as a party, to date?

Kaczorowski: probably the appearing on Woodstock Stop music festival in Kostrzyn. Lots of fun, great music and talking to people about our issues.

TorrentFreak: What big events do you have planned for the near future?

Kaczorowski: The registration, first inside party elections and Pirate Party internationals upcoming meeting in Berlin

TorrentFreak: Recently, you expressed your distaste with Commissioner Franco Frattini’s proposal regarding anti-terrorism and the Internet, by comparing it to how Poland was run in the 1980s. How much has the country changed since then, and what does the Pirate Party aim to do to help accelerate the change from the soviet era?

Kaczorowski: Like 180 degrees. In 80s we has socialism here with all its worst totalitarian ambitions and a grate Solidarność movement underground. Media control was normal but it didn’t worked out. You could listen to Free Europe radio beside communist trying to jam transmissions, You could read all underground printed newspapers even if for having one you could get in jail quickly - the same would be with internet now – if someone would try to control information people will go underground. Even if from first sight trying to not give terrorist info is good - controlling internet is much worse - it is a step back in creating free informational society.

TorrentFreak: Dziękuję bardzo za wasz czas

Kaczorowski: No problem

Their political program in Polish can be read here

Compared to the Irish scene, the Polish political spectrum is always refreshingly surprising.