Governments in the European Union's three new Baltic member states received a battering during the region's first European elections as opposition parties and sometimes virtually unknown groups seized most of their seats in the bloc's parliament, according to results Monday.

"It is a triumph for the opposition... It is a clear 'no' to the government," Latvia's leading daily Diena said, after the right-wing opposition drubbed the three-party ruling coalition.

According to provisional results from Latvia's national election commission, the right-wing opposition parties swept up most of the country's nine seats in the European Parliament.

The right-wing, free-market oriented For Fatherland and Freedom Party took four seats and 29.8 percent of the vote. It was followed with two seats and just under 20 percent of the vote for the conservative New Era party, which has been pressing for early elections.

The pro-business People's Party was the only one of the three-party ruling coalition that scraped into parliament with a single seat.

The leftist Human Rights in United Latvia, which defends Latvia's Russian speaking minority, and a rightist party also won one seat each.

Deputy Prime Minister Ainars Slesers brushed aside suggestions that the opposition gains could weaken his Green-led government coalition.

"I completely deny that these results could influence the stability of the current government," Slesers told AFP.

"I strongly believe that people did not express distrust in the government, because only the radical part of Latvias voters went to the elections, namely those who voted for radical Latvians and Russians," he said.

But New Era party seized the initiative, saying it was starting talks on forcing a new government line-up.

Party leader Einars Repse, a former central bank chief, was pushed to resign as prime minister in February because of squabbling within his government coalition.

In neighbouring Estonia, the 14-month-old centre-right coalition government was also sidelined by the small pro-EU Social Democratic party which scored an upset by seizing three of the country's six seats with 36.8 percent of the vote, the national election committee announced.

Three rightist parties, including the liberal Reform Party, a member of the country's fragile and shifting coalition, shared the rest of the seats in Strasbourg, it added.

The governing centre-right Res Publica party of Prime Minister Juhan Parts finished last among the major parties in the poll with 6.7 percent of the vote behind its coalition partner, the agrarian People's Union.

"The result definitely cannot be seen as a confidence vote for the government," the prime minister's spokeswoman, Kristi Liiva, told AFP.

In Lithuania, early results showed the opposition Labour Party set up last year by populist Russian-born millionaire parliamentarian Viktor Uspakich was emerging at the top of the European ballot with 30.3 percent.

The ruling Social Democrats were trailing in second place with 14.4 percent, the national election commission said.

Uspakich commands broad support beyond the country's small Russian-speaking minority, with his blunt-speaking pledge to defend Lithuanian interests in the European Parliament appealing to poorer sections of the population.

While voting was brisker in Lithuania thanks to concurrent presidential election, the results in the other Baltic EU newcomers appeared to have been coloured by the low turnouts.

In Estonia, only 26.7 percent of voters -- 233,450 people -- ventured out on Sunday, less than half of those who voted in last year's national elections, while the official turnout rate in Latvia stood just above 41.2 percent.