More Trouble for Merkel as Pirate Party Raids Its Fourth State Parliament | Global Spin | TIME.com: "Whether established parties were left celebrating or commiserating last night, all will have talked about the Pirates. Campaigning for free public transportation and a basic income guarantee, they managed to attract 30,000 first-time voters, according to research from Infratest dimap/ARD. The Greens could only attract 20,000. And they also coaxed 70,000 non-voters to the polls, compared with 50,000 for the Greens. But Germany’s mainstream parties will be most worried about the direct hits they sustained in NRW. The Pirates marauded voters from all major parties, stealing 60,000 from Merkel’s CDU, 80,000 from the Greens, and 90,000 from the SPD. “Germany’s party system lacks a party that is young, modern, progressive and representative of the 21st century’s Information Society,” says Alexander Hensel, a political scientist who studies the Pirates at Germany’s Goettingen Institute for Democracy Research. “The Greens had this role, but they are too old now.”"
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