Conservatives raced toward victory in some of Europe’s largest economies Sunday as initial results and exit polls showed voters punishing left-leaning parties in European parliament elections in France, Germany and elsewhere.
Someright-leaning parties said the results vindicated their reluctance tospend more on company bailouts and fiscal stimulus amid the global economic crisis.
First projections by the European Unionshowed center-right parties would have the most seats — between 263 and273 — in the 736-member parliament. Center-left parties were expectedto get between 155 to 165 seats.
Right-leaning governments were ahead of the opposition in Germany, France, Italy and Belgium, while conservative opposition parties were leading in Britain and Spain.
Greece was a notable exception, where the governing conservatives wereheaded for defeat in the wake of corruption scandals and economic woes.
In Spain,the conservative Popular Party won two more seats than the rulingSocialists — 23 to 21 seats — with over 88 percent of the vote counted.
Exit polls also showed gains for far-right groups and other fringe parties due to record low turnout. (Nonsense, of course.–Ed.)
Britain elected its first extreme-right politician to the European Parliament, with the British National Party winning a seat in northern England’s Yorkshire and the Humber district.
The far-right party, which does not accept nonwhites as members, wasexpected to possibly win further seats as more results in Britain wereannounced.
Lawmakers with Britain’s major political parties said the farright’s advance was a reflection of anger over immigration issues andthe recession that is causing unemployment to soar.
Near-final results showed Austria’s main rightist party gaining strongly while the ruling Social Democratslost substantial ground. The big winner in Austria was the rightistFreedom Party, which more than doubled its strength over the 2004elections to 13.1 percent of the vote. It campaigned on an anti-Islamplatform.
In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ anti-Islamic party took 17 percent of the country’s votes, taking four of 25 seats.
The Hungarian far-right Jobbik party won three of 22 seats, with the main center-right opposition party, Fidesz, capturing 14 seats and the governing Socialists only four.
Jobbik describes itself as Euro-skeptic and anti-immigration andwants police to crack down on petty crimes committed by Gypsies.Critics say the party is racist and anti-Semitic.