Everything that has a beginning has to move on at some point.

Today, I am stepping down as leader of the first Pirate Party to move on to other duties. It has been the most extraordinary journey of my life, together with the most brilliant people I’ve had the privilege of working with.

Building a hierarchical organization on participatory culture with tens of thousands of individualists who distrust authority has been something of a… challenge. But, in hindsight, we have accomplished miracles together. Miracles so large that we have gotten used to coverage on media like CNN, BBC, Russia Today and al-Jazeera. In papers from Ethiopia to Sydney. That’s news, ladies and gentlemen. That’s making headlines. Literally making headlines.

We still have much to accomplish together, and I’m continuing to be happy to be a part of the road ahead of us. I will be moving on to focus on primarily Europe but also the rest of the world; up until today, we have been turning down keynote invitations left and right simply because we haven’t had the capacity. My job will be to accept and deliver on those invitations, explain information policy, and build networks. It’s classic evangelism, and that’s also what my business card will say. Political Evangelist.

From now on, my job will be to travel the world and talk to people. Sometimes one at a time, sometimes thousands at a time.

There are five primary reasons for me moving on, and I will cover them in one post a day here.

Stagnation. After five years, I am no longer full of new ideas. Rather, I have transformed into somebody who keeps doing the same things over and over again. If I’m stagnating, so is the party. Therefore, it’s time for me to move on. This is the most important point. Organization. The organization is in place, after five years of growth pattern that defy every MBA education in existence. The basics for an operative hierarchy to coexist with participatory culture is finally in place. Blue Fire. The internal culture has not always been healthy, despite my attempts to the contrary. Specifically, backstabbing the leadership has been all too common. I will give specific examples in hope of shining light on a problem; I don’t think many understand the sheer scale of it. This has left me shellshocked. Evangelism. I really want to move on to focus on one of my favorite activities — political evangelism. Besides, I feel there has been a language barrier from the Swedish discussion, which is several years ahead, to the rest of the world. I want to bridge that. Anna. Anna Troberg is just extraordinary and is exactly what the Swedish Pirate Party needs at the helm right now. If I really cared about the Pirate Party — and I do — this would actually be enough.

I will return to each of these points, one a day, over the following days.

In the meantime, let me reiterate that it has been a fantastic five years.

Rick Falkvinge

former party leader,

Swedish Pirate Party