THE HAGUE, 13/03/03 - The provincial elections were won on Tuesday by Labour (PvdA) and the Christian democrats (CDA). The results determine the composition of the Upper House in May. But if voting is compared with last January's Lower House elections, the conservatives (VVD) did best of the three big parties.

The provincial councillors elect the Upper House on 26 May, meaning Tuesday's balloting is primarily seen as a Senate election. CDA wins 23 seats in the 75-seat Senate, up 3 from the previous balloting in 1999. PvdA wins 4 seats, while the VVD lose four. But compared with the results of the 22 January general elections, the VVD would have won 1 extra MP in the 150-seat Lower House, bringing it up to 29 MPs.

CDA rises from 20 to 23 Upper House seats, but would have stabilized at 44 MPs in the Lower House. The PvdA climbs from 15 to 19 Senate seats, but translated into Lower House seats, it would have actually lost 4 seats to 38.

The differences were however biggest among the smaller parties. The leftwing Greens (GroenLinks) drops from 8 to 5 Upper House seats, while it would have gained 2 Lower House seats, bringing it to 10. Conversely, the Socialist Party (SP) doubles its Senate seats to 4, but would have dropped from 9 to 8 in the Lower House.

Most significant are the results for the jointly advancing orthodox Christian SGP and ChristenUnie parties. While they slip from 6 to 4 seats in the Senate, they would have doubled their Lower House seats to 10.

Differences compared with the Lower House results can partly be explained by the fact that parties with a staunch following benefited from the low turnout (47.6 percent). According to a poll carried out by Maurice de Hond, Pim Fortuyn List (LPF) suffered most from its supporters staying home. The party, which did not exist in 1999, only achieves 2 Senate seats. The center-left (D66) drops one seat to 3. The other parties combine lose their only seat.