Low turnout and many upsets

The Europeans woke up this morning to realize that their low participation in the voting for new members of their Parliament meant a big upset in many of their countries. The Center right parties won in large countries including France, Germany and Italy, while the Socialists were the big losers. Countries where ruling parties were defeated included Britain, Spain, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Hungary, Ireland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Portugal, Sweden, Greece and Slovenia. The surprise was the gains that the Greens made specially in France, where a coalition of Green politicians led by 1968 student leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit won about 16 percent of the vote. Some fringe parties of the extreme right won some seats -for instance in the UK with the far-right British National Party, known for its anti-immigration stance that won two seats in the European Parliament. In the Netherlands, a far-Right anti-immigrant party won second place, behind the ruling Christian Democrats, taking 17 per cent of the total vote and in Austria, two anti-immigrant parties won an unprecedented 17.7 per cent. While this is not something to be pleased about it was not so bad as some had feared.
Much has been written and talked today about why or why not this were the results but that is the reality. The general feeling is that adding to the apathy of the voters was a desire to punish the ruling parties in some countries where they were blamed by the economical problems Europe like many other places in the world is going through.