The centrist D66 party has made huge gains in close-run Dutch elections, as the party of far-right leader Geert Wilders lost support, with tough coalition talks expected to follow.
Whichever party gains the most seats will have the first opportunity to try to form the next government, but many parties have ruled out the possibility of working with Mr Wilders, leaving D66 in pole position. The party's leader, Rob Jetten, said political leaders now needed to seek common ground “to form a stable and ambitious Cabinet".
With 98 per cent of votes counted early on Thursday, D66 and Mr Wilders' Freedom Party (PVV) were both projected to take 26 seats in the 150-seat lower house of parliament. After a night of vote counting, D66 held a narrow lead of 2,300 votes of the total of about 10 million votes cast. Counting is to resume on Thursday morning.
D66 made the biggest gains and almost tripled its seats, while Wilders' party suffered a sharp fall from a record showing in the last poll in 2023.
Exit polls and early results indicated a narrow victory for the progressive D66, with the PVV trailing in second place. But vote counting indicated a slightly stronger showing for the anti-Islam populist party.
The shift in the early hours of Thursday is unlikely to alter the composition of the next government coalition. All major mainstream parties have ruled out governing with Mr Wilders after he brought down the last coalition led by his party, leaving him no viable path to a majority.
The result instead seems to pave the way for Mr Jetten to form a government as the youngest prime minister of the Netherlands.
But Mr Wilders insisted early on Thursday that he would take the lead if the PVV came out on top. "As long as it's not 100 per cent clear, D66 can't take the lead. We will do everything we can to prevent that," he said in a post on X.
Mr Wilders said on Wednesday evening that he was disappointed his party had lost seats and was unlikely to be in the next government. “Today is a day of results and we lost and Mr Jetten won, so he deserves congratulations too,” he said in parliament.
Putting together a coalition that can command a majority in the House of Representatives will be difficult in a parliament divided between the political left and right. While Mr Wilders' party lost seats, another hard-right party, Ja21, grew from one seat to nine.
Night of celebration
Cheers and chants of "yes, we can" broke out during the D66 election night celebration as the crowd waved Dutch flags. "We've shown not only to the Netherlands, but also to the world, that it is possible to beat populist and extreme-right movements," Mr Jetten told the crowd. "Millions of Dutch people today turned a page and said farewell to the politics of negativity, of hate, of endless 'no, we can't.'"
The popularity of Mr Jetten, 38, surged in the past month, as he campaigned on a promise to resolve a housing shortage, invest in education and tackle immigration concerns.
Mr Wilders, one of Europe's longest-serving populist leaders, is known for his anti-Islam stance and lives under constant protection because of death threats. He proposed denying all asylum requests – a move that would breach EU treaties – sending male Ukrainian refugees back to their homeland and halting development aid to finance energy and health care.
Mr Wilders led his party to a stunning first-place finish in the 2023 election and formed an all-conservative coalition, although his partners refused to endorse him as prime minister. He brought the government down in June over its refusal to adopt his hardline measures.
Coalition talks
With 76 seats needed to form a governing coalition in the Dutch parliament, at least four parties will be required. One scenario is a pact including D66, the conservative Christian Democrats, the centre-right VVD and the Greens-Labour party. However, building stable coalitions is tough and talks are expected to take months.
The centre-left combination of Green Left and the Labour Party lost five seats to end on 20 and leader Frans Timmermans, a former vice president of the European Commission, quit immediately. “It is time for me to take a step back and give the leadership ... to the next generation,” he said.
The Christian Democrats were big winners, gaining 14 seats to end on 19, polls showed. “What a fantastic result. We wouldn’t have dared to dream of this two years ago,” said party leader Henri Bontenbal.
