It seems that we have a fall full of elections in the Central Europe. First we had the general vote in Germany (where Pirates got a great support in some of the larger cities, like Berlin or Dresden), then there were elections in Austria, Luxembourg and now the Czech Republic.

2013 was a very different year in the Czech politics than the previous ones. First mass amnesty in 20 years, first president elected by the popular vote in history and first early elections after a very long time. All this changes destabilized the Czech political system severely. And the general mood that can be seen in the Czech society is not helping either. The outlook when it comes to many issues - not to mention the most crucial ones for the Pirates - is grim. 

After the failing policies of left-wing or right-wing parties, the situation in the Czech Republic is similar to Slovakia, Slovenia or even Croatia. Big parties failed in their promises and policies and the voters are desperately looking for anyone who might bring change to their country. The politicians are aware about this phenomena and they try to use it as much as possible for their cause. 

All of this can be very favorable for the Czech Pirates, who have a real chance now to cross the 5 % threshold and make it to the parliament. The only problem is - so have many other parties. Destabilization of the political system that took place this year kicked down all the major parties; the right-wing ones are now small and hating each other, the left ones are offering either populist or communist future. It is hard to hear or see the Pirate voice over so many populist trying to do pretty much everything to get to the parliament - no matter what the costs are. This is makes honest campaigning and fight for the transparency, presented by Czech Pirates, harder than ever. The media favored mostly the big parties; the polls estimates were accused from being manipulated by some of the politicians. 

The central motto of Czech Pirates was "Every epoch has its own pirates", showing various characters from across the Czech history. The main topics were focused mostly on transparency - an issue where the Czech Republic when it comes to the main political parties is not in a fair shape. A good example how to start to promote transparency can be perhaps the project of "Reconstruction of the state" - a joint initiative of several NGO's to pass laws to combat most common cases of corruption. Pirate party supported this idea, together with other progressive and open-minded subjects and parties. The party also wants to advocate for better participation of general public in politics and decision processes as well as for better (free) access to the information.

The elections will take place on Friday (14:00 - 22:00) and Sunday (8:00 - 14:00). According to the last election polls the Pirate Party might get 2,5 % of votes. But now, there is the time to find out the real number - that will be free from interventions of various agencies, medias, political pressures and everything else. Now it is time for the real decision.