The biggest parliamentary election in European history reaches a climax today with signs that centre-right parties are to maintain their strength in the European Union parliament.
Six countries had already finished voting: Britain, Latvia, Malta, Holland and the Czech Republic. Voting ended in Ireland on Friday and counting continues today with tallies showing a number of seats too close to call.
A result can only be declared after all polling stations across the EU closeat 9 p.m.
Some 14,700 candidates are seeking a five-year term in the Strasbourg assembly, with 732 seats up for grabs.
Accession states from behind the old "Iron Curtain" such as Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia voted in their first European election. Malta, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, are the other states which joined in May making an electorate of nearly 350 million people.
In some countries, provisional results or exit polls showed voters punishing ruling governments. And low turnout in two accession states suggests apathy is a problem in the EU's new members as well the established states.
In Latvia, early counting indicated under 40 per cent had turned out while in the Czech Republic, one polling agency indicated a turn-out of only 25 per cent.
The centre-right is forecast to dominate the new assembly, with the socialists the second largest group.
According to provisional results from the Netherlands, where voting ended on Thursday, the ruling coalition lost seats against a background of slow economic growth and high unemployment.
In Britain the EU poll - along with local elections - is being seen as a protest vote against Prime Minister Tony Blair, especially regarding his support for the US-led attack on Iraq.
In Italy, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is also expected to suffer for his support of the Iraq war, but Spain's recently-elected prime minister Mr Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's decision withdraw to pull Spanish troops from Iraq has proved popular.
Europe's only directly elected institution has growing powers over a raft of legislation from food safety, financial regulation and the environment. It has the power to reject EU budgets and also to sack the EU's executive, the Commission.