THE HAGUE, 23/01/03 - Labour (CDA) will emerge from yesterday's elections as the leading party, said pollster Maurice de Hond two hours before polling stations closed. He predicted 44 seats for the PvdA, 42 for the Christian democrats (CDA) and 30 for the conservatives (VVD).

In the past few days, all pollsters had been assuming that the PvdA would be the biggest party. But they said yesterday that substantial changes were still possible. The provisional results were announced last night, after printing time of NIS News Bulletin. The definitive results will follow next Monday.

According to De Hond, who asked voters' opinions yesterday morning, the Socialist Party (SP) would win 11 seats in the 150-seat Lower House, the leftwing Greens (GroenLinks) 6, the Pim Fortuyn List (LPF) 6, the center-left (D66) 5, and the orthodox Christian parties ChristenUnie and SGP 4 and 2 respectively. De Hond stressed that his results have an error margin of three seats for the biggest parties.

Based on De Hond's figures, the CDA and VVD would not achieve their hoped-for combined majority. They would need a third coalition party to be able to form a government. If CDA could opt for a coalition with PvdA, but does not feel much in favor of this. The party leaders of the several parties are likely to give the queen their views on the coalition they consider most suitable today.

According to provisional figures by pollster Interview-NSS, the turnout for yesterday's parliamentary elections was high. At 3.45 p.m., 43 percent of the electorate had voted, one percentage point higher than at the previous elections last May, when the final turnout was 79.1 percent.