The so-called “Sonndesfro” survey--which assesses voter intention if elections were held the following Sunday--at the end of May showed a 10% share for the Pirates in parliament, resulting in six seats, up from currently two.

With this in mind, the party looked to the local elections to confirm this potential trend. “We delivered,” said Sven Clement, a member of parliament for the Pirates and a member of its executive committee, in an interview. “I’m more than satisfied.”

The Pirates won a seat on the Luxembourg City council, joining the opposition in the municipality’s executive for the first time. Other bigger communes where the party is now represented include Esch-sur-Alzette, Differdange and Hesperange.

In Pétange, where the Pirates already held two seats, they grew their representation to four elected officials. But also in smaller communes, individual candidates affiliated with the party did well, earning seven seats overall.

That includes the first mayor’s seat for the group, in Colmar-Berg, where Mandy Arendt is set to be sworn in as the first female mayor of the commune. Arendt came second in the vote but the top candidate decided not to take office.

“It might look like an overnight success, but behind that overnight success there are six years of work on the ground,” said Clement, adding that the party had been active in recruiting members over the last years.

Even some of the bigger parties struggle finding enough candidates in some communes, with the Pirate party fielding lists in 13 out of 46 municipalities where they must present a line-up of nominees equivalent to the number of council seats.

“The Pirates are newcomers,” said Clement, who helped found the party in Luxembourg in 2009. “We don’t have 100 elected officials already on lists fighting for their posts.”

Getting on the inside

It was a difficult showing for some of the bigger parties in the country, however. The CSV’s share of votes dropped from 30.44% in 2017 to 26.06% this year. Déi Gréng suffered cuts of 3.66 percentage points and the LSAP’s share of votes dropped 2.71 percentage points.

Only the DP was able to extend its presence, adding 2.48 percentage points and 26 seats to its result compared to the last local elections.

“People have an appetite to vote apart from the four big ones,” said Clement.

However, the Pirates’ success wasn’t matched by some of the other smaller parties in the country. The ADR scored nine seats but showed a more modest growth in numbers, adding mandates in Clervaux and Kayl. The right-wing conservatives in a press release said it is happy with the result, increasing its share and mandates. 

Déi Lénk on the other hand saw its success decline in five out of seven communes where it was in the running, gaining seats in the other two. The party in a statement conceded disappointment at voter turnout for its causes and said it must work on getting its message cross better and more clearly, competing against parties doing marketing instead of politics. 

Clement, too, attributed the DP’s success to a campaign based on “feel-good” messages and familiar faces. “It worked,” he said.

Election “Groundhog Day”

An evaluation process will now begin to assess which faces could join the party in its campaign for the October national elections. But not everyone who was a success at local level will automatically run in a few months’ time, Clement said, adding that the party will be looking for a balance in terms of geography within electoral districts, socio-economic background, gender and other demographic factors.

Security, housing, transport and quality of life remain high on the agenda, Clement said. “We’re talking about the same topics as in 2013. I sometimes feel like our elections are an incarnation of US Groundhog Day,” he said. “It’s up to us Pirates to deliver a credible alternative of transparent and constructive opposition work.”

After the election is before the election this year for politicians in Luxembourg, and the Pirates are already keeping “half an eye” on the 8 June 2024 European elections, where Clement says it is “competitive” to take over one of the six Luxembourg seats in the European Parliament.

“I cannot imagine that voters want to have an MEP there who has been sanctioned twice for bullying from her parliament, which is a rare exception when you know how pervasive the problem is,” he said.

Luxembourg’s Monica Semedo in March was for moral harassment of her staff, although she said she would that came just over two years after a first sanction.

Semedo ran with the DP at the last European elections but has since left the party and remains in the Renew group in the European Parliament as an independent.

Getting to work

The October results in Luxembourg will be important in determining how the Pirates proceed. “It’s an ambition that must be supported by people, resources and content,” Clement said.

And once all elections are out of the way, the chief Pirate is looking forward to getting out of campaign mode and into policy work. “I would never have thought how quickly five years in the chamber would pass by,” he said of his mandate as an MP.

The extra seats across communes in the country will deliver more visibility for the party locally and nationally, Clement said. “It’s incredibly difficult for a party to criticise the majority when you’re on the outside.”

This story was updated on 15 June 2023 at 8.45am to include an update on Mandy Arendt becoming mayor in Colmar-Berg.