Kim Dotcom Launched His Political Party

Kim Dotcom’s made the news recently in relation to both his Mega file hosting business, which this week announced it was going public, and his music career, which took off with a debut album release on his Baboom music service in January. He’s a man of many hats, but today saw a new Dotcom identity come to the fore: the politician.

Dotcom officially launched his political party in New Zealand this morning, and it’s about more than copyright reform (though unsurprisingly, that’s high on the agenda). Privacy rights, clean tech, and perhaps most intriguingly a national digital currency also feature on the Internet Party’s newly active website.

New Zealand’s next general election will be held in September, and the Internet Party needs 500 members to become a registered party—a number it claimed to have reached within seven hours of launch. Dotcom can’t stand for Parliament himself—he was born in Germany and isn’t technically a New Zealand citizen—but he’s funding the party and is very much its figurehead, at least for now.

As you might expect from the name, the Internet Party agenda—the full manifesto hasn’t yet been released—focuses almost exclusively on digital issues. Its website describes it as “A party that will give you faster, cheaper Internet, create high-tech jobs, protect your privacy, and safeguard our independence.”

Specific policy points mentioned include cheaper and faster internet with “an end to the bandwidth monopoly,” a jobs boost in the tech sector, a bill of digital rights to combat mass surveillance, and new copyright laws.

The site also boasts plans for a government-sponsored New Zealand currency. How that will shape up to Bitcoin or the deluge of other sovereign cryptocurrencies like Iceland’s nationally distributed Auroracoin remains to be seen. All we know so far is from this short blurb:

The Internet Party will support the introduction of a New Zealand-sponsored digital currency that is safe, secure and encrypted, providing for instant international transactions at minimal cost. By becoming a digital currency leader, New Zealand can become a key hub for a growing financial sector.

There’s a hint of other broader policies, too, with mention of national independence, a modernised education system, and a responsive government.

Of course, the launch wouldn’t be authentically Dotcom without a little unconventional flair, and it also saw a video “manifesto” consisting of a kind of slapstick Mission Impossible parody, featuring a not-too-convincing Barack Obama lookalike trying to track down the Internet Party manifesto at Dotcom’s mansion—a document which apparently reveals how to eradicate the need for a military and oil, and turn water into bitcoin.

But Dotcom’s not joking around when it comes to the political race. To enter Parliament, the Internet Party has to win an electoral seat or receive five percent of the vote. That might seem like a low number, but it’s by no means a given; for comparison, Julian Assange’s Wikileaks Party only got 0.66 percent of the vote in the 2013 Australian elections.

However, Dotcom has claimed that he’s already got a sitting electorate MP onboard after talking to members of other parties in what a New Zealand Herald editorial called “the most aggressive poaching exercise in this country's contemporary political history.”

Before the party even launched, he’s been embroiled in political tensions. He initially planned a free “Party party” to kick off the political venture, but was forced to cancel when the Electoral Commission warned it could be seen as buying votes. Then according to local news sites, he’s been in the awkward position this week of having to defend owning Nazi memorabilia including a signed copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, discussion of which he dismissed as a smear campaign directed by the National Party, one of New Zealand’s two major political parties.

Dotcom himself is of course still fighting extradition to the US on piracy charges over the now-defunct Megaupload. It seems unlikely that will do anything to deter the votes of the internet generation Dotcom’s party is targeting. Soon the polls will tell.