Kim Dotcom's Internet Party Finds New Legitimacy in New Zealand

Kim Dotcom’s Internet Party is now something to be taken seriously in New Zealand politics. On Thursday, the fledgling party announced a new leader, veteran politician Laila Harre, and a short-term merger with the Maori Mana Party in anticipation for the 2014 general election. The party's battle cry is that it will fight the bandwidth monopoly and make high-speed internet accessible to all.

Dotcom, the German-Finnish tech entrepreneur, founded the Internet Party in January and has already spent $4 million of his own fortune on it. Although Dotcom has been a longtime advocate of the party’s principals, like copyright reform, some are skeptical that his involvement in politics is at least partly motivated by hopes it could help him avoid extradition to the United States, where he faces charges of criminal copyright infringement related to the activities of his erstwhile money-maker Megaupload.

Regardless of his motives for bankrolling the Internet Party, its progressive platform is a refreshing addition to New Zealand’s political landscape, and the party's focus on the web could capture the imagination of a younger generation. New Zealand enjoys high voter turnout overall, but suffers from relatively low numbers when it comes to young adults. In the 2008 election, 22 percent of 18 to 26 year olds didn’t vote, compared to only 7.5 percent in all other age brackets.

The party’s principal agenda of making high-speed internet affordable and accessible to all is a bit misleading. Access in the country has been a struggle in part due to so many New Zealanders living in sparsely populated areas and having privately-owned copper lines, and the current government has already introduced the Ultra-Fast Broadband Initiative and Crown Fibre Holdings to solve the problem.

Still, the Internet Party’s agenda addresses other digital-age issues—it promises to boost tech sector jobs, fight mass digital surveillance, reform copyright law, and introduce a government-sponsored digital currency—as well as non-web issues. The Internet Party supports free tuition, independence from corporate interests, and clean energy. At the end of the day, calling itself the Internet Party might just prove to be savvy marketing tool to get young people interested in their modern left-of-centre platform.

The newly appointed leader Harre has no particular web expertise—when asked what Internet provider she uses the response was, “I wouldn’t know, my husband pays those bills”—but her status as a former cabinet minister lends the party legitimacy. And, over the course of her political career, she has introduced paid parental leave legislation to parliament and has long been an advocate for trade unions and living wages.

Even more than Harre’s experience, the Internet Party’s alliance with the Mana Party is key to its strategic approach to New Zealand’s mixed member proportional voting system. In order to get into parliament, a party must win a seat or 5 percent of the vote nationwide. By merging, the Internet Party is “riding the coattails” of Mana Party leader Hone Harawira, who already holds a seat. Another advantage of merging with the Mana Party is that a certain amount of seats in New Zealand parliament are reserved for indigenous Maori party representatives, which Harawira qualifies as.

Like most single-issue parties, the Internet Party doesn’t really have a chance of winning the election—it might prove a threat for the Labour and Green parties, likely stealing some of the popular vote and a few seats in what will probably be a close election—but ultimately the hope is of starting a conversation and providing a litmus test for how important these digital issues are to New Zealanders.

The Internet has radically shifted just about every aspect of culture and society, and now its influence is beginning to be seen in political life. The Internet Party has emerged as a credible political force at the same time as the EU debates which nation will be in charge of regulating web privacy. It’s inevitable that the net will only continue to be more and more of a central issue in national and international politics.