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European Elections Yield Fragmented Parliament after Record Turnout

European Elections Yield Fragmented Parliament after Record Turnout
folder_openEurope... access_time4 years ago
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By Staff, Agencies

Europe's mainstream political parties took a hit in elections on Sunday but held off a strong surge by the populist right of Marine Le Pen, Matteo Salvini and Nigel Farage, and still managed to escape with two-thirds of the seats in the European parliament.

Turnout EU-wide reached an estimated 51 percent, a 20-year record in the world's second biggest democratic exercise as more than 200 million citizens across the 28-nation bloc voted in the poll billed as a battle between pro-European forces and populists.

While it was not the far-right surge many had predicted, the main centrist and center-left groups did lose their combined majority in the European Parliament following the challenge by Eurosceptic and nationalist forces in the world's second biggest democratic exercise.

In Britain, Farage's single-issue Brexit Party appeared to trounce the main parties and he will send a large contingent of British Eurosceptics to a parliament they want to leave in a few months.

And in Italy, Salvini's far-right League achieved a similar result, strengthening its role at the core of a vocal populist faction in the EU's legislature.

With results still being tabulated in France, far-right leader Marine Le Pen appears on course to beat French President Emmanuel Macron. Her National Rally party currently leads with 23.4% of the vote compared to Macron's La République En Marche at 22.47%.

The advance of the right was less pronounced in Germany -- where a strong showing by the Greens was reflected in a "green wave" in many countries -- but the anti-immigrant AfD broke the 10-percent barrier.

Across Europe, according to updated projections prepared by the parliament, the center-right European People's Party EPP is still on course to have the most seats in the assembly with 179, but their hold on the EU assembly shrunk sharply from the 216 seats it won in 2014.

With the center-left Socialists and Democrats [S&D] projected to win 150 seats, down from 185, the two mainstream parties will no longer have a majority and will have to reach out to liberals to maintain a "cordon sanitaire" to exclude the far-right from decision making.

"We are facing a shrinking center," said German conservative Manfred Weber, lead candidate for the center-right European People's Party [EPP] to replace Jean-Claude Juncker as European Commission chief.

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