LEIDEN, 22/01/03 - Contrary to the latest opinion polls, a panel of experts is predicting that the Christian democrats (CDA) will remain the largest party. A coalition of the CDA and conservatives (VVD) is not however expected to achieve a majority in the Lower House.

According to the experts, the CDA will win 43 seats, Labour (PvdA) 42 and the VVD, 28. Pim Fortuyn List (LPF) will get 7 and could thus still lift its present coalition with CDA and VVD to a majority of 77 seats in the 150-seat parliament.

Research bureau Research for Policy believes opinion polls are wrongly used as predictors of election results and has developed a system whereby former politicians, journalists and academics make predictions. At the March 1998 elections, the panel of experts succeeded in predicting the result more accurately than the polls.

The differences in the experts' predictions are primarily in the small leftwing parties. According to the polls, the PvdA is siphoning off almost all the Socialist Party (SP) and leftwing Green (GroenLinks) votes in the battle to become the biggest party, but according to the panel this effect is not so strong.