Alex Arnold Becomes the First Elected Pirate Mayor!

Alex Arnold, pirate mayor of Eichberg. CC BY PP Switzerland.

The Swiss Pirate Party had a major victory Sunday, as 31-year-old Alex Arnold was elected mayor of Eichberg, a municipality in North Eastern Switzerland. He is not the first Pirate Mayor, but the first pirate to be selected by an electoral process. The city of Eichberg, were Alex Arnold was elected, has a population of 1,481 persons.

The region’s local Pirate Party is less than a year old, yet Arnold managed to win the election with 60% of the votes, 349 votes to 145. In office, he has vowed to focus on a policy of transparency. Much like many pirates, he chooses to place himself neither left nor right on the political spectrum.

Thomas Bruderer, president of the Swiss Pirate Party, said of the victory:

These results are an important milestone for our young party. Winning a majority vote shows that our members are not part of a fringe phenomenon but are rooted in the midst of society.

This is not the first victory from the Swiss Pirates – in 2010, they won their first seat in the city of Winterthur, the sixth largest city of Switzerland. In the general elections of 2011, the pirates won 0.48 % of the votes, not enough to enter parliament but a good result for a young party.

Featured image is CC BY-SA Schofför.

About Anton Nordenfur

I'm a board member of the Swedish Pirate Party and editor here at Pirate Times. I'm primarily interested in research and education politics, and have a bilingual blog at anton.nordenfur.se. I currently live in Linköping where I study physics at the university.

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The Swiss Pirate Party had a major victory Sunday, as 31-year-old Alex Arnold was elected mayor of Eichberg, a municipality in North Eastern Switzerland. He is not the first Pirate...