THE HAGUE, 20/06/09 - The Party for Freedom (PVV) has reached its highest score ever in the fortnightly Political Barometer. This poll held by TV programme NOVA and research bureau Synovate shows that Geert Wilders' party would now win 28 Lower House seats.

The PVV has been the largest party in Maurice de Hond's weekly polls for more than two months. Synovate, the other most influential poll, has previously had the party in third place, but now reports that the PVV, with 28 seats, would be the second party after the Christian Democrats (CDA), who would win 33 seats. Third would be Labour (PvdA) with 24 seats.

This means that the PVV, which currently only has 9 seats in the Lower House, has risen by 5 seats compared with the last Political Barometer (23). CDA (41 seats in the current House) has dropped 2 seats from 35 two weeks ago. The PvdA (now 33) loses 3 of the previously predicted 27 seats.

Other parties doing well in the barometer are centre-left D66 and the leftwing Greens (GroenLinks). D66, which only has 3 seats at present, jumped from 12 to 15. GroenLinks (7) climbed from 8 to 10. The conservatives (VVD, 22) showed a sharp drop, from 17 to 14 seats.

The Socialist Party (SP), who expanded the most at the last election, to 25 seats, have now fallen from 14 to 13 in the poll. Progressive Christian party ChristenUnie (6) remained unchanged in the poll, at 8 seats. The Party for Animals (PvdD) (2) would now win seats for 3 MPs. Proud of the Netherlands (TON) would win no seats at all. Orthodox Christian party SGP is stable on all counts, keeping its present 2 seats.