THE HAGUE, 16/01/03 - It appears a pity for the Pim Fortuyn List (LPF) party that young people aged 12 to 17 are not allowed to vote. If it was their say, the LPF would obtain 27 seats in the Lower House, according to a poll published yesterday by the home ministry's Codename Future project.

The highest proportion of young people would vote for the Christian democrats (CDA), which would emerge the biggest party from next Wednesday's elections with 33 seats. They give labour (PvdA) 30 seats, the conservatives (VVD) 19, the leftwing Greens (GroenLinks) 15 and the Socialist Party (SP) 11. The statement that voting does not change anything in The Hague anyway prompted the agreement of 30 percent of those surveyed, while 46 percent disagreed and 24 percent did not know.

Increasing public safety/combating crime was named by 29 percent of the teenagers as the most important political issue. This was followed at a distance by health care (13 percent), education (12 percent), the environment (10 percent) and the economy/employment (9 percent). Remarkably, only 7 percent gave priority to integration of minorities and asylum policy, one of the hottest issues in the actual election campaign and a showpiece of the LPF in particular.