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The centrist D66 party scored big victories in the Dutch elections, most likely leading its second formation, while the party of far-right leader Geert Wilders is strong.
With 98% of votes counted by the morning of the vote, D66 and Wilders' Freedom Party (PVV) were projected to take 26 seats each in the 150-seat lower house of parliament.
After a night of vote counting, D66 holds a narrow lead of 2,300 votes out of a total of around 10 million votes cast.
The count will resume on Thursday morning.
D66 made the biggest gains and more or less tripled its seat, while Wilders' party followed a sentiment from a record result in the last poll in 2023.
Exit polls and early results had shown a narrow victory for the progressive D66 party, with Wilders' party falling to second place. But the vote count showed a slightly stronger showing for the anti-Islam populist party.
The results in the first days of the same are unlikely to graduate the next government coalition.
All major parties have blocked Wil from governing after he toppled the last coalition led by his PVV, leaving him with a clear path to a majority.
The result appears to pave the way for D66 leader Rob Jetten to form a government as the youngest prime minister ever in the Netherlands.
But Wilders insisted early Thursday that he would take the lead if the PVV ultimately emerged victorious.
"As long as it is not 100% clear, D66 cannot take the lead. We will do everything we can for this," he said in a post on X.
Wilders on Wednesday evening said he was disappointed that his party had lost seats and was unlikely to be in its own government.
D66 party
Cheers and "Yes, we can" erupted at D66's election night celebrations, as the crowd waved Dutch flags.
"We have shown not only the Netherlands, but also the world that it is possible to defeat populist and extreme movements," Jetten told Turma.
"Millions of Dutch people today turned a page and said goodbye to the politics of negativity, of hatred, of endless 'no, we can't'."
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