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Elections attract voters in three countries

A French voter casts his ballot yesterday for the first round of the legislative elections in Saint Cloud, west of Paris. Some 44.5 million registered voters are eligible to cast ballots to elect 577 deputies for the lower house of the French parliament. Elections were also being held in Belgium and Italy yesterday. PHOTO: AP

Belgians headed to the polls yesterday in legislative and senate elections widely expected to dash Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt's hopes for a third four-year term in office.

As always in linguistically divided Belgium's politics, the country's language faultline will play a key role, with the party that comes out on top in the northern Dutch-speaking Flanders likely to pick the next prime minister.

Polls opened at 8am and traditional paper ballot voting was due to close at 1pm. Electronic voting will finish at 3pm. First results were not expected until 5pm and complete results were due in around midnight.

Since no party fields candidates in both of Belgium's two main regions, winning in Flanders, where 60 percent of the population live, is key to national success.

Polls have consistently shown the Flemish Christian Democrats winning the most votes in Flanders, making it likely that the regional leader and party heavyweight Yves Leterme, 46, will emerge as the next prime minister.

But while Leterme's platform of more power for regional bodies goes down well in Flanders, he has in the past angered French-speakers in the southern region of Wallonia by disparaging their failure to learn Dutch.

While perfectly bilingual thanks to his francophone father and Flemish mother, it is far from certain that Leterme will be able to bridge the linguistic divide in Belgian politics and life.

Although the Flemish Christian Democracts look set to play the key role in the next government, a round of tough horse-trading is likely before a coalition is agreed, which can take months.

FRENCH POLLS

The French headed back to the polls yesterday in a parliamentary election tipped to give right-wing President Nicolas Sarkozy the majority he needs to push through an ambitious reform program.

Sarkozy's UMP (Union for a Popular Movement) has been riding high on the president's popularity since he was elected last month vowing to put an end to high unemployment, poor economic growth and social discontent in high-immigration suburbs.

The UMP has ruled for the last five years in an unpopular government, but opinion polls predict that thanks to Sarkozy's electoral appeal it will increase its majority and emasculate the already weakened Socialist Party.

Polls opened across France at 8am for the first round of voting, with round two to be held next Sunday. They close 12 hours later, with normally reliable result projections due out immediately.

Sarkozy, confident of another electoral victory, has promised a special parliamentary session for next month to push through a raft of reforms, including tougher sentencing rules, restrictions on immigration and more autonomy for universities.

Voters are returning to the polls to choose the 577 members of the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament.

ITALIAN BALLOTS

Italians return to the polls yesterday and today for run-off elections in cities and provinces where the center-right opposition hopes to build on gains made two weeks ago.

"If the left were to lose the province of Genoa, that could be a decisive turning point" bringing down the government, opposition leader and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Friday.

The center-left held on to the city of Genoa, the biggest city at stake in the election, in the first round.

Among the 69 cities holding run-off mayoral contests are north-central Parma and Tarento in the south, but the center-left incumbents are expected to prevail.

Some 10 million Italians, about one-fifth of the electorate, were eligible to vote, but turnout in the first round fell compared to similar polls five years ago, from 77 percent to 74.8 percent in the municipal elections and from 64.4 percent to 57.4 percent in the gubernatorial races.

The voting concerned 856 municipalities of a total of about 8,000, as well as the governors of seven of the country's 104 provinces.
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