Ruling parties may bite dust in EU’s largest polls

The European Union’s biggest election reached its climax on Sunday as citizens from ex-Soviet bloc and West European states picked a ne...

The European Union’s biggest election reached its climax on Sunday as citizens from ex-Soviet bloc and West European states picked a new Parliament in a poll marked by apathy and domestic protest votes.

Members from behind the old ‘‘Iron Curtain’’ such as Poland, Hungary and the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were voting in their first European election. Six countries had already finished voting — Britain, Ireland, Latvia, Malta, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.

In some countries, provisional results or exit polls showed voters punishing their leaders and handing victories to opposition parties. And low turnout in two countries suggested apathy was a problem in the EU’s new members, no less than in the old.

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Some 14,700 candidates spread across a huge land mass from Lisbon to Lithuania were hoping to be elected to a five-year term in the Strasbourg assembly, with 732 seats up for grabs.

These would-be Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) range from established politicians to a porn queen, pop icons, several sports stars, two astronauts and a Nobel prizewinner.

The centre-right was forecast to dominate the new assembly as it did the old, with the socialists the second largest group. Britain’s EU poll, also held on Thursday along with local elections, turned into a de facto protest for many against PM Tony Blair for supporting the US-led war in Iraq. —(Reuters)