proposal: petition for new election

Ok

If you want to collect mail addresses for other uses than the petition, you'll have to mention it in the form

Of course. It has to be GDPR proof. I don't think that should be a problem. You could ask "Do you want to receive news from the Pirate Party? --> If yes, give your e-mailaddress."

I think it could be really practical in case of a blitz new election where we don't have time to collect signatures, but also in general for any election, petition, newsletter, ...

1 The way it happens now is undemocratic

2 Something finally moves which could get us in an already better situation depending on which reforms would be proposed.

I don't think it helps to say 2 is undemocratic in itself.

I didn't say it's undemocratic, although I'm not sure you're right. It definitely is voter fraud (kiezersbedrog). If Ecolo is taking part in the conversation, the same goes for them.

It goes to show (again) that this party political system is merely a show around strategy. The ideas are not central anymore, not even the party dogma's, but the parties as organisations. We can leave it out if you think it would harm the petition.

Can we use the pirateparty.be website for this?

Thanks for the proposition @Lander Meeusen :)

• I don't really have a position yet on asking or not new elections, but some comments at the moment :
  

• we're only talking federal level here, right? Because we can't have elections at the regional levels anyway (they're coupled with European elections). So this might limit the scope of our demands.
  

• I wouldn't use the 2nd argument ("PS said this..." "NVA promised that..."), the negociations between parties are always about trading one promise against another. It's impossible for any party to have a program and to demand their whole program to be accepted so any negociation could be considered a "betrayal of the electorate". I understand what you mean though, but I think it would just open a never-ending debate.
  

• 1st argument ("the situation has changed since before COVID") is probably the best. It's an unexpected (mostly) situation, that we have never experienced in our lifetime, for most of us at least. We're outside of the "politics as usual" business.
  

• For important questions like "which direction should our society take?", there is often a mention of referendum. Constitution doesn't allow referendum in Belgium, because... there is a kind of referendum already included in the constitution. The procedure for changing the constitution (french / dutch) was intended to actually create a sort of referendum, but instead of having simple YES/NO questions, it invited the political groups to campaign during the pre-electoral period about the changes they wanted to bring. This might be an argument in favour of calling new elections : the campaign should be about important issues, not the 20th episode of BHV.

• About the GDPR, it's not a detail, we have to be extra careful with it. So simple solution : a petition with no data collected (just the necessary data to publish it) + an invitation (non-mandatory otherwise it's illegal in my opinion) to subscribe to our newsletter.
  

• "Can we use the pirateparty.be website for this?", yes, I don't see why not :) (but then it's best to have pirates actively participating in this campaign, otherwise you won't get this petition published anywhere, cfr our facebook page that doesn't publish any content we create anymore)
  

• As we didn't use money for the elections, we might use some here. For example to print flyers to distribute where the crews want to distribute. (this might also solve the facebook problem)

• Problem I see about this proposition of asking new elections : if new elections really happen (because of our petition, or more likely because the negociation have failed), then we're not ready to run for elections. Unless you're saying that there is an active dynamic pirate group somewhere hidden :p

-It's only for Federal elections, yes. In the province of Antwerp, we had a list for the last Federal (and Flemish) elections. In Western-Flanders there was a list for Flemish parliament. An invitation to subscribe to newsletter is perfect. (Is there actually a newsletter? I never get anything.) So in some places, I think we are ready. Regardless, a petition like this might attract press attention, which is good for the pirate ideas in general.

-We could team up wither other movements to broaden our scope and make the signal louder.

-The 2nd argument is indeed not a good argument for new elections. It shows how unethical the party system is, but in our current democracy parties are forced to lie in order to execute part of their programme. Voters can only guess which promesses they will keep and which not. It's unethical, but not illegal.

-Who do we speak to about using the website? Does anybody have the knowhow? If not, I would use an independent website? Any (data-friendly) suggestions?

Is there actually a newsletter? I never get anything.

Yes, there is a newsletter. It hasn't been sent since ages but it exists, with hundreds of subscribers (one mailing-list in french, one in dutch, one undefined/mixed languages). I brought it up at one of the last labs but we worked on other things. There is a topic : https://www.loomio.org/d/PF9IUdlM/newsletter

We could team up wither other movements to broaden our scope and make the signal louder.

The signal about the message would be louder, probably, but it would also reduce the attention on PPBe which is the reason of the petition?

> Who do we speak to about using the website? Does anybody have the knowhow? If not, I would use an independent website? Any (data-friendly) suggestions?

You can contact the IT squad (email address on their wiki page https://wiki.pirateparty.be/ITSquad and/or you can join the chatroom https://app.element.io/#/room/#ppbe-internetz:matrix.org

Thanks for the info, Renaud!. I saw the last newsletter from february 2019 (which I didn't receive), and it looks great. It's a pity we don't have more people to keep these kind (e.g. the facebook page) of things going in a more structural way.

For me personally the idea of a more direct democracy (or in this case showing the flaws of our current system) is more important than the size and reach of PPBe. We teamed up with groups like Burgerlijst, Pro, Collectif Citoyen, Agora, ... before to write opinion pieces or the petition about the citizen senate by lotery, and I believe that this still generates attention for PPBe.

If nobody minds, I'll contact some people from these groups. I'll get in touch with the IT squad to see what's possible on the website as well.