NIJMEGEN, 03/01/03 - The various Internet media have paid the most attention in the past two months to the Christian democrats (CDA) among all the political parties. The party received mentions in 6,149 news articles since 7 November, ahead of the conservatives (VVD) at 5,747 and labour (PvdA) at 5,635, according to marketing bureau Checkit.

Were the number of mentions in the news to be a barometer of the number of seats in the Lower House, the CDA would win 27 seats, VVD 26 and the PvdA 25. Pim Fortuyn List (LPF) would win 21, the leftwing Greens (GroenLinks) 14, the Socialist Party (SP) and center-left (D66) 11 each, Liveable Netherlands 6 and ChristenUnie 5. The survey covered the Internet editions of media including the national newspapers.

Checkit also surveyed how often the parties were mentioned in news groups and discussion forums on the Internet, and concluded that the ratios were completely different there. The most-discussed parties were the SP (7,068 mentions) and LPF (6,186).