European governments braced themselves for electoral embarrassment yesterday as recession-hit voters turned to protest parties or failed to cast ballots at all in elections to the European parliament.
The centre-right CDU-CSU alliance of Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor, was set to win 38 per cent of the vote, down from 44.5 per cent in 2004, according to exit polls. Her Social Democrat coalition partners were predicted to win 21.4, down from 21.5 per cent.
Despite the fall in support the result was encouraging for Ms Merkel. The liberal Free Democrats – her preferred government partners after next September's national election – were projected to score 10 per cent, up from 6 per cent.
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