I'm a candidate for the "Grosser Rat" in Basel. Why did I put myself up for election? I'm a busy man already.
Well fact is, that the pirate party, I am member of, have lots of good ideas. Some are unconventional, some are maybe far out of reach but most are generated out of todays world from a position of a young and internet oriented population. The internet is here. That's a fact. And it does affect our daily life more than ever. Many laws where written many many decades ago where nobody could think of something like the internet. This requires that the law of today has to be changed/adapted/appended to take into consideration of the new world we have today.
Unfortunately, many elected in todays political environment, have no clue about the internet. This leads to new laws which make little sense, are not democratic and might simply help the old players (who have problems following the new business models) protect their richness instead of allowing new players to compete. In other words its important that new laws are written by people who can understand the full consequences of new laws. And this can only be done by people who understand the internet to the fullest extent. That's why it's important that we have the Pirate Party going into the Grosser Rat of Basel because the Pirate Party is full of such people. The old structures lead to protectionism and protectionism leads to corruption. Corruption leads to unfairness against the public and this is not democratic at all. In today's world many so called democratic states have lost their basic democracy rights. The USA is an example where torture is now a "normal" thing. The splitting of democratic power is a thing of the past. While I love the USA as a country and its people, I think we will see some dark times coming up from the superpower which doesn't care too much about international law. But back to Switzerland.
The pirate party is also full of very young people who do not have the wisdom yet of what working together with other political entities means. However I believe I do. My business life has taught me politics in a way that working towards a doable compromise solution is the way better solution than trying to push through your own solution to the fullest. This is what Basel needs. With 46 year's I'm the oldest person which is votable from the pirate party. But hopefully my long time experience will be a fruitful addition to the politics of Basel. And hopefully my contributions to local politics will be that we will not see corruption and a 3rd edition of the "Fichenaffähre".
The state is voted by the public and it has an obligation to serve the public. Otherwise we don't need a state.