Kim Hjelmgaard

USA TODAY

Iceland's radical Pirate Party, run by a former WikiLeaks worker who wants to be a political "Robin Hood," could lead the Nordic nation's next government after Saturday's election.

The Pirate Party, started four years ago, is part of a wave of populist groups gaining ground in Europe, from Austria to Italy, amid discontent with political scandals and a stalled economic recovery. Iceland's economy collapsed after the 2008 financial crisis, and in April the prime minister resigned after being named in the Panama Papers scandal.

"We stand for enacting changes that have to do with reforming the systems, rather than changing minor things that might easily be changed back," said Birgitta Jónsdóttir, 49, the party's leader and self-described "poetician." "We do not define ourselves as left or right but rather as a party that focuses on the systems. In other words, we consider ourselves hackers."

Formed in 2012 to lobby for Internet copyright reform, the Pirate Party has broadened its platform to include advocating for direct democracy, total government transparency, decriminalizing drugs and even offering asylum to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.

The party's headquarters in the capital Reykjavík is in a building appropriately called Tortuga — a reference to the former Caribbean pirate stronghold off the coast of Haiti. The group's official logo is a black Viking sail.

"We want to be the Robin Hood of power: We want to take away the power from the powerful and give it to the general public of Iceland," Jónsdóttir said.

A poll this week by research firm MMR had the ruling center-right Independence Party with a slight lead over the Pirate Party. But an Oct. 19 poll by the University of Iceland put the Pirate Party marginally ahead of the Independence Party, which has been the dominant political force in Iceland for decades.

The Independence Party lost support in part after the Panama Papers showed that Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson and his wife secretly owned an offshore company in the British Virgin Islands for their investments. He then stepped down from his post.

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Some of those investments had claims connected to Iceland's beleaguered banks. At the height of the financial crisis, as its currency crashed and stock market was wiped out, Iceland's government let its banks fail. Thousands of savers lost money, and many businesses went bankrupt.

Geir Haarde, who was prime minister at the time, later became the only politician found guilty in court over claims that he did not do enough to prevent the country's banks from failing, although he escaped punishment.

Gunnlaugsson then became the world's youngest democratically elected leader in 2013 at the age of 38. He was head of the center-right Progressive Party, but he had to share power with the Independence Party.

If the Pirate Party triumphs Saturday, it will likely need to form a coalition to secure the needed 32 (out of 63) parliamentary seats to establish a government. Yet, both the Pirates and Independence — the two top parties — have ruled out working together.

Current interim Prime Minister Sigurður Ingi Jóhannsson's Progressive Party came in fourth in both polls.

Since the financial crisis, Iceland's economy has bounced back, helped by rising tourism and an improved sovereign credit rating. GDP is forecast to grow 5% this year, well ahead of the average in Europe. Unemployment is down, pegged at 3.3%. Home prices are rising. Inflation is steady at the target rate of about 2%.

"Although Iceland is out of the financial crisis, there remains a moral crisis, a crisis of trust, that has not been restored," Friðrik Már Baldursson, an economics professor at Reykjavík University, said about the popularity of the Pirate Party.

Despite the party's eye-catching name, its economic policies mostly follow the tradition of the nation's left-wing parties, calling for big state spending on health, education and social welfare programs.

"It's more their way of working that is unusual. They have all sort of rules about transparency, and so on," he said.

Still, if the Pirate Party wins, a more pressing problem than keeping the economy on track will be figuring out who becomes Iceland's next prime minister.

The party has a flat organizational structure, and Jónsdóttir — who once said her favorite word is "revolution" — claimed she does not want the role, saying it would be "so totally bizarre."