Across Europe, polls back conservatives in record low turnout

EARLY results and exit polls showed conservatives racing towards victory last night in some of Europe's largest economies.

Voters were punishing left-leaning parties in European Parliament elections in France, Germany and elsewhere.

Projections by the EU showed centre-right parties would have the most seats – between 263 and 273 – in the 736-member parliament. Centre-left parties were expected to get between 155 and 165 seats.

Germany's Social Democrats were projected to be heading for their worst showing in a nationwide election since the Second World War. France's interior ministry said partial results showed the governing conservatives in the lead.

The French results put the Socialists in a distant second and the Europe Ecologie environmentalist party a close third.

Greece was the exception, where the governing conservatives were heading for defeat in the wake of corruption scandals and economic woes.

In Spain, the conservative Popular Party won two more seats than the ruling Socialists – 23 to 21 seats with over 88 per cent of the vote counted. An EU estimate showed that only 43 per cent of 375 million eligible voters cast ballots in European parliament elections – a record low amid widespread disenchantment with the continent-wide legislature.

Exit polls showed gains for far-right groups and other fringe parties because of the record low turnout.

Near-final results showed Austria's main rightist party gaining strongly, while the ruling Social Democrats lost substantial ground. The big winner in Austria was the rightist Freedom Party, which more than doubled its strength over the 2004 elections to 13.1 per cent of the vote. It campaigned on an anti-Islam platform.

In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders' anti-Islamic party took 17 per cent of the country's votes, taking four of the 25 seats.

The Hungarian far-right Jobbik party won three of 22 seats, with the main centre-right opposition party, Fidesz, capturing 14 seats and the governing Socialists only four.

Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi's Freedom People's Party held a two-digit lead over his main centre-left rival in the most recent polling, despite a deep recession and a scandal over allegations that he had an inappropriate relationship with a young model. Italian results are being released tomorrow.

An exit poll in Sweden showed the Pirate Party, which advocates shortening the duration of copyright protection and allowing non-commercial file-sharing, capturing 7.4 per cent of the vote.