The Netherlands Voted Yesterday to Elect a New Parliament, with Talks Now Set to Begin on the Formation of a New Government
The Netherlands voted yesterday to elect a new Parliament, with talks now set to begin on the formation of a new government. 2017 is a crucial year for Europe, with France and Germany also going to the polls, and this DeHavilland EU briefing takes a first look at the results of this potential bellwether of an election. The 2017 Dutch Parliament, or Tweede Kamer, election had been framed as a race between incumbent, liberal Prime Minister Mark Rutte and right-wing populist Geert Wilders. By this metric, the voters delivered a clear win for the former, in a contest that saw a high turnout of over 80%. The governing VVD remains the largest party by a clear margin with around 21% of the vote, while Wilders' PVV, despite picking up seats, did not make the hoped-for breakthrough. Whether this is a predictor of results in the upcoming French and German elections remains to be seen, but leaders around Europe were quick to offer relieved congratulations. Meanwhile, as is so often the case with junior coalition partners, the Labour Party (PvdA) was all but wiped out at the ballot box, losing around three quarters of its seats. The Green Party, GroenLinks, was the biggest winner, jumping from 4 seats to 14. The Christian Democrats and the liberal left D66 performed strongly, with over 12% of the vote each, and both look likely to feature in the next coalition government. Negotiations on this will now start, and at least four parties will be needed to form a majority. The evenly distributed nature of the results mean that Rutte will have a number of different options.
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