{"id":10198,"date":"2026-05-10T14:39:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T14:39:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/10198\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T14:39:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T14:39:36","slug":"d66-wins-nail-biter-netherlands-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/10198\/","title":{"rendered":"D66 wins nail-biter Netherlands election"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) \u2014 A nail-biter national election in the Netherlands<\/a> came down to postal votes from Dutch citizens living abroad, with the centrist D66 party eking out a win over anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders\u2019 far-right Party for Freedom, according to a final tally by national news agency ANP. <\/p>\n

The pair will each have 26 seats in parliament, as the roughly 28,000 vote advantage for D66 was not enough for the party to pick up an additional legislator. <\/p>\n

Using a nearly complete ballot count and an estimation based on previous patterns, ANP had predicted D66 would receive the most votes<\/a> but the question of the additional seat was unclear until late Monday evening. <\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters last week, Rob Jetten, the 38-year-old leader of D66, called the outcome a \u201chistoric result\u201d and said he was proud but felt a \u201cgreat responsibility\u201d to the country. <\/p>\n

Jetten would be the country\u2019s youngest and first openly gay leader.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Jetten announced fellow party member Wouter Koolmees would be appointed as a \u201cscout\u201d and tasked with investigating possible coalitions. Koolmees previously served as social affairs minister and is now the chief executive of the Dutch rail company.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Ministers<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s able to connect the left and the right,\u201d Jetten told reporters. Koolmees will begin on Wednesday, meeting with the leader of each of the 15 parties in parliament <\/p>\n

In the splintered Dutch political landscape, forming a coalition is likely to take weeks or months. <\/p>\n

Despite a second place finish, the result is an 11-seat loss for Wilders\u2019 party, known by its Dutch acronym PVV. <\/p>\n

Two years ago, the PVV surged to victory<\/a> in a stunning lurch to the far right for a nation once famed as a beacon of tolerance. But the 62-year-old has lost support since forming and then bringing down a four-party coalition that was notorious for infighting and which did not manage to agree on a tough package of measures to rein in migration to the Netherlands.<\/p>\n

Wilders has reacted to the loss by suggesting on social media there may have been voting irregularities, a claim widely rebuked by local municipalities that organize voting as well as the Electoral Council, the independent body that certifies election results.<\/p>\n

He has since backtracked, telling reporters that accusations that he was undermining democracy were \u201cnonsense\u201d and offering congratulations to Jetten. <\/p>\n

The council will formalize the outcome on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) \u2014 A nail-biter national election in the Netherlands came down to postal votes from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[8527,2038,2037,822,8528,6,2034,802,1020,42,831,8526],"class_list":{"0":"post-10198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-hague","8":"tag-2026-elections","9":"tag-elections","10":"tag-geert-wilders","11":"tag-general-news","12":"tag-international-agreements","13":"tag-netherlands","14":"tag-netherlands-government","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-rob-jetten","17":"tag-the-hague","18":"tag-world-news","19":"tag-wouter-koolmees"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}