HÖFN Í HORNAFIRÐI, Iceland — In the fjord-bound fishing town of Höfn, Iceland, a group of high school students are impatiently waiting for a Pirate.

She comes, bearing a flag: Purple with the outline of a sail blown into the shape of a capital P. Emblazoned on the sail is a white, flayed cod in a nod to Icelandic heraldry.

The queen of the Pirates in this constituency is Oktavia Hrund Jónsdóttir, 37, who is campaigning for the Icelandic Pirate Party ahead of October 29’s elections to Iceland’s Parliament, the Althingi.

“We’re expecting landslides,” she told POLITICO during the six-hour drive to the school. She wasn't just referring to the polls — which point to the Pirates having a shot at becoming Iceland’s largest party — but also to flood warnings which can send granite boulders tumbling onto roads.

What supporters of Iceland’s Pirates have in common with followers of Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain, the 5Star Movement in Italy — or even Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in the United States — is a feeling of disenchantment with political elites who they feel let them down after the financial crash of 2008.

But Iceland’s anti-establishment push has taken on its own unique character, led by a swashbuckling and quintessentially nerdy crew of mavericks, anarchists, libertarians, futurists and much in between.

“Direct democracy can be exhausting, but the results are magnificent” — Oktavia Hrund Jónsdóttir

The Pirates, a crowdfunded party who believe in individual privacy on one hand and government and corporate transparency on the other, deny the existence of leadership in their movement. Instead, the party claims to be “led by the grassroots — the highest authority." Their platform includes public ownership of natural resources, a right to internet access and rights for animals and the environment.

Beyond those issues, the Pirates have promised to make it easier for people to trigger national referendums and to adopt a constitution crowd-sourced via social media and approved by two-thirds of the population in a national referendum but still not adopted by the Althingi.

“Direct democracy can be exhausting, but the results are magnificent,” Jónsdóttir said.

'Beggars can’t be choosers'

Returning from a life in Berlin as a security advisor for journalists in conflict zones, Jónsdóttir is fighting for a seat in a constituency that includes much of Iceland’s southern coast.

To her and many others in the party, the biggest battle is securing an individual’s right to privacy.

“I have to use up to five encryption devices a day to secure my privacy,” she said, arguing the state should do more on behalf of its citizens.

"People thought I was batshit crazy for coming back, and not just because I was going into politics," she said. But, she added, “direct democracy is delicious.”

Given the short campaign season, she has been speeding around in a small silver car borrowed from one of just three MPs the party currently has in the 63-seat Althingi. “I wish we had a jeep,” Jónsdóttir said. “But beggars can’t be choosers.”

Crowdsourcing had delivered some funds, she said, but barely enough to pay for gas costs, let alone accommodation. Iceland’s campaign trail, she said, zipping through the volcanic landscape, “is not as glamorous as in the U.S. or in Britain."

Storm, fog and debate

At the school, Jónsdóttir took part in an inter-party debate and "shadow election," one of the school's initiatives to get first-time voters more engaged with politics. Most observers believe younger voters could be a support base for the Pirates but Hlif Gynfadottir, a teacher at the school, cautioned that many may not show up at the polls. “Most of the students aren’t very politically inclined,” she said.

Candidates from 10 different parties had been invited and in this small country of about 300,000 people, most jumped at the chance to win over these young voters — even if it meant significant travel time from the capital.

Storms and fog, however, grounded flights that day, leaving several candidates stuck in Reykjavik. A representative from the far-right Icelandic National Front accepted the invite but blindsided organizers by not showing up. (Pollsters believe the National Front is unlikely to gain seats in the Althingi, the national parliament.)

Those who showed up included representatives from Bright Future, the Progressive party, Dawn (Dögun X-T) and the Left Green Party as well as Pirates and the Independence Party. The Socialdemocratic candidate showed up via Facebook messenger.

Vilhjálmur Árnason, who is hoping to keep his seat in the Althingi for the center-right Independence Party, went head-to-head with Jónsdóttir.

The Independence Party, which has served in most governments since independence from Denmark in 1944 and is competing with the Pirates to be the largest party, is running on experience and the promise of stability.

"Why change something that works?” Árnason asked during the debate, pointing to Iceland’s steady economic recovery. "If the fisheries are not okay, this town is not able to live anymore," he said, with a dart aimed at the Pirates's proposal to scrap the current quota system in favor of leaseholds to be auctioned off.

The Pirates argue the current system has shut out small players, leaving Iceland’s large fishing industry in the hands of the few.

“The inequality of the quota system has been disastrous,” Jónsdóttir said, after the debate. “The Fish Quota Kings shall not prevail!”

An idiosyncratic program

Iceland, which relied heavily on the financial sector, was badly hit by the economic meltdown beginning in 2008, and although the economy has since recovered due to capital controls, currency adjustments and a tourism boom, voter trust has not.

Even the popular consolation that some bankers have since been jailed was undermined this year when a banker was discovered skipping his jail time after crashing his helicopter.

When it comes to the rest of Europe, the Pirates are neither for nor against the European Union, one of the founders says.

Adding to voter skepticism, the Panama Papers leak ripped through Iceland earlier this year, revealing the use of tax havens by some of the country’s rich and powerful, including Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson’s family, forcing Gunnlaugsson to quit, and bringing about early elections.

Smari McCarthy, a self-described "math dropout with an interest in systems," was one of the party's founders in Iceland in 2012. Like in Germany and Sweden, where the Pirates were first formed, online privacy was a major issue. But while the movement in those countries has mostly fizzled away, the Icelandic Pirates have kept going in a mist of nerdy rebelliousness. (They have ties to WikiLeaks and have promised the Whistleblower Edward Snowden an Icelandic passport.)

“Our democratic liquidity is so low,” McCarthy said. “We’re seeing a society that is being massively changed by technology,” he said, “and it is increasingly being managed by an aging political class that does not care enough about it.”

“We understand the need for transparency and equal access to information,” he said. “First and foremost, we understand that all of this will be radically different, radically soon.”

He defies categorization on the political spectrum. “We are neither left or right. We reject that analysis as being outdated and worthless."

When it comes to the rest of Europe, the Pirates are neither for nor against the European Union, he said, adding that membership is a perennial, divisive and distracting issue for the Icelandic people. “It's been a wedge issue of doom, and we would like to take that issue off the table.”

However, should Iceland vote to join the EU, McCarthy hinted he would use the negotiations to try to make the EU more democratic. A little ambitious, perhaps? “We’re so unusual anyway,” he said, with a laugh. “We might as well go for gold.”

Meeting the voters

After the debate at the school, Jónsdóttir drove to a farmer’s meeting in the town of Reykholt, three hours west of the school where she spoke alongside McCarthy.

Poreleifur Johannesson, a tomato grower, was impressed by what he heard. “They are very open-minded," he said, adding that McCarthy "was glad to learn from us and was clearly well-prepared for the meeting. People are ready to take a chance with them.”

“Politicians come here and say ‘blah-blah-blah’ and then go away ... Nothing changes” — Thiosvur Jonsson, farmer

Asked whether Johannesson would actually vote for the Pirates, he said he still didn’t know. A lot of good politicians had shown up to the farmer’s meeting, he noted, and he was spoilt for choice. “I’d vote for them all,” he said.

Thiosvur Jonsson, who farms cabbages, cauliflower and sometimes broccoli and kale, was less convinced, describing the Pirates as a “big joke."

He remained unconvinced that they were different from the rest of the establishment.

“Politicians come here and say ‘blah-blah-blah’ and then go away," he said. "Nothing changes.”