The WikiLeaks party could learn about transparency from the Pirate party

Earlier this year, Julian Assange announced the formation of the WikiLeaks party:

The party will combine a small, centralised leadership with maximum grass roots involvement and support. By relying on decentralised Wikipedia-style, user-generated content structures, it will do without apparatchiks. The party will be incorruptible and ideologically united.

The hope for many was the mixed bag of WikiLeaks supporters would – even if not elected – show Australian political circles a thing or two about how to achieve the party’s much touted mantra of “transparency, accountability and justice.”

Fast forward to August 2013, and the WikiLeaks party appears to be imploding. Six party members have publicly resigned, including Victorian Senate candidate Leslie Cannold and Western Australian volunteer coordinator Natalie Banks. Daniel Matthews, one of the founders of WikiLeaks and loyal friend to Julian Assange since his time at university, has also resigned, prompting many to ask: what the hell just happened?

The WikiLeaks party preferenced the extreme right party Australia First above the Greens in New South Wales, and placed WikiLeaks-supporter Western Australian Greens senator Ludlam below the Nationals. While many party members initially claimed their unpalatable choices were an “administrative error”, many have since suggested such claims are a bald-faced lie, especially since Greens staffer Max Phillips had already noted last week that WikiLeaks party’s NSW deputy registered officer Cassie Findlay had informed him of their preferences at least a week before the “error” became public knowledge.

Others, such as Western Australian WikiLeaks party Senate candidate Gerry Georgatis, aren't claiming preferencing decisions are any kind of mistake. In fact, Georgatis seems happy about it, which may have something to do with the fact that he was a previous Greens candidate. Crickey reports he broke with the Greens in 2009, and one may guess, was potentially thrilled at the opportunity to slide the knife in at any cost – much to the horror of party volunteers, who appear to be quitting en masse.

Assange has since taken responsibility from the party's implosion. The WikiLeaks party made public statements suggesting the party’s NSW were a mistake, and the Western Australian preferences simply “symbolic.” As Greens staffer Giovanni Torre responded, it is a gesture that has a strong chance of electing a Coalition senator above [current WA Greens senator] Scott Ludlam.” And for all this misery? It appears the WikiLeaks party may not even win a single seat.

So how did this mess occur?

The answer lies with participatory democracy in party processes. WikiLeaks party’s national council seemed to compromise mostly of a self-elected group of friends and loosely linked acquaintances. They rushed to select potential electoral candidates and create a policy platform in time for the Australian Electoral Council (AEC). The WikiLeaks party national council meetings seem to have mostly been a closed affair – as a result, there possibly wasn’t critical oversight to scrutinise processes and add much needed pressure to ensure the party was run democratically.

As news of the untenable preference deals broke and the wrath of disillusioned supporters rained down upon the WikiLeaks party, a strange thing happened: the Pirate Party Australia (PPAU) began to trend on Twitter for the first time.

Founded in 2009 by Rodney Serkowski with approximately 20 members, the PPAU took two attempts at AEC enrolment. Their first attempt at registration was lodged when former prime minister Julia Gillard called the election for August 21. As a result, the party was unable to formally contest the 2010 federal election. This may have been a blessing in disguise, giving the fledgling Pirate Party Australia three years to develop mechanisms for accountability which the WikiLeaks party failed to put in place.

The PPAU has created a policy platforms on more than 17 areas, including taxation, foreign affairs, social welfare (which the Australian Privacy Foundation describes as a “remarkably comprehensive platform which is very positive on human rights and privacy issues in its heartland area of the digitally literate"). Details of the PPAU’s policy platforms are publicly available and appear to include over 150 references.

Deputy secretary, press and policy development officer Mozart Olbrycht-Palmer says:

Although we're not elected, we do an extensive amount of activism on the issues we have policies on. We're constantly making submissions on inquiries and reviews. We're a force to try and make the incumbent parties consider certain issues, and to make them rethink their approach. And if they don't, we'll try to take their seats.

Now numbering over 800 members, in keeping with the PPAU’s commitment to transparency and participatory democracy, the party published all emails with other parties on their preferencing deals and decisions. All PPAU members then voted, ranking parties accordingly.

PPAU’s lead Senate candidate for NSW Brendan Molloy described how the party achieved its transparent and accountable model:

Basically we used an open and transparent policy development process: public development meetings are held on IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and Mumble (open source voice communication software.) All drafts of policy development were done with the support of Working Groups and were placed on a public wiki for discussion, before being voted on by the members before being adopted. Referencing was a part of that; as a party that believes in truly evidence based policy development, we put strong emphasis on well sourced statements.

As all our meetings are public and all minutes are published, oversight exists by default. We run background checks on all candidates: police background checks for one, and googling the nominees secondly. And as we have an open preselection process, the candidates have to present to the party why they should be preselected as a Senate candidate. Then the members of those states take a vote on whether those candidates should stand, and in what order they will stand on the Senate ticket. Then all of those anonymous ballots are published. 

It seems the Pirate Party Australia has actually realised values can be more than just hollow jingoism. They have found a way to make their party processes reflect their members' values by using a grassroots participatory model to create a set of preferences.

The outcome? Their preferences appear saner than most of the rest of the bunch – and by a long shot.

While they may be a long shot for the 2013 election, they don't plan on going anywhere. Surveying the wreckages of the WikiLeaks party preferencing fiasco, PPAU president Simon Frew noted: "Politics is a marathon: it's easy to sell out for as short term gain, but it always eventually comes back to bite you if you sell out your ideals."