PRAGUE, June 13: Apathy edged with euroscepticism marked the first European parliamentary elections among the 10 new EU members, most of them once behind the Iron Curtain, as final voting was under way on Sunday.
Analysts said many voters in the former communist states of "New Europe" which joined the EU when it expanded to 25 members in May, were weary of elections. And in many countries, parties in power fared badly as voters used the European elections to register domestic protests.
"In the beginning, elections were something exciting and exclusive after decades of communism but that enthusiasm is wearing off," said political analyst Bohumil Dolezal in Prague.
Citizens of the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia are voting for the first time for the 732-member European Parliament along with fellow newcomers Cyprus and Malta.
Seven out of the 10 new EU states were voting Sunday, with citizens of the Czech Republic, Latvia and Malta having already cast their ballots. The eurosceptic opposition trounced the ruling party in the Czech Republic but fewer than one in three voters bothered to turn out, according to estimates released on Saturday as two days of voting ended there.
An exit poll by Czech public television suggested that the Civic Democrats (ODS) founded by fiercely eurosceptic President Vaclav Klaus won 31 per cent of the vote while Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla's Social Democratic party finished third behind the communists.
The Social Democrats, whose leadership is increasingly seen as aloof by the electorate, appear to be paying the price for unpopular reforms that have left people with less money in their pockets.
Voters in Latvia appeared to have delivered a stinging rebuff to the coalition government and its Green party Prime Minister Indulis Emsis. Exit polls indicated that opposition groups had swept aside the centre-right ruling coalition parties, which might not even end up with a single European deputy.
Only two out of five Latvians or 40.71 per cent of the electorate voted, the Central Election Commission said, citing almost complete turnout figures. That compared with 72.5 per cent at the same time during general elections in October 2002 and 68.9 per cent in September's referendum on joining the EU.
Voting began in Slovakia with just one in four of the electorate expected to take part. European enlargement commissioner Guenter Verheugen urged citizens in new EU states to vote, warning that low turnout could favour more "unusual" candidates and even result in anti-European groups being elected.
In Hungary, political analyst Andras Giro-Szasz said figures showing that less than 20 per cent of voters had cast their ballots about halfway through the day was a sign the country's "two great parties (the ruling socialist MSZP and the opposition conservative Fidesz) were not able to mobilise their voters."
Giro-Szasz said Hungary would "fall into the rank of European nations amongst which a lack of interest characterizes elections related to the EU." In Poland, voters are preoccupied with the country's domestic political crisis and there are signs that less than one third of Poles will cast ballots.
A few voters braved spring drizzle in Estonia amid signs that a government call urging people to vote had fallen on deaf ears. "Today, when Estonia is a member state of the EU, the future of Europe depends also upon us," said a joint statement from the country's president, prime minister and parliament chief. "Participation in the European Parliament is one part of these rights and responsibilities. Estonia's vitality depends also on Europe's future."
Malta, however, bucked the trend with turnout in the EU's smallest nation at 82 per cent. In divided Cyprus however, turnout after several hours of polling was lower than expected. -AFP
