Rob Jetten’s Dutch centrist liberal party wins neck-and-neck election race, vote analysis says

Rob Jetten, the centrist liberal party of the Netherlands, won Wednesday’s neck-and-neck election race, according to vote analysis that showed it cannot be defeated by anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders.

Jetten’s D66 is currently ahead by a narrow 15,000 votes over Wilders’ Freedom Party, and Dutch news agency ANP says Wilders can no longer win, even though vote counting is not complete.

Estimates from almost 99% of the vote show both parties have 26 seats in the 150-seat parliament, but the ANP says Jetten’s centrists could win the 27th seat.

Victory will mean Jetten can begin coalition-building efforts.

Wilders had led opinion polls heading into Wednesday’s election, but 38-year-old Rob Jetten managed to win some of the Netherlands’ main cities, including Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht, by running a positive campaign using the slogan “Yes, we can”.

He was careful not to declare victory until all the votes were in, but the ANP said he could now be declared the winner based on figures from postal voters abroad.

Although the path to forming a coalition will not be easy, it is estimated that he will be the youngest prime minister in modern Dutch history.

Jetten said after the vote that no party had ever won a Dutch election with fewer than 30 seats.

It will need the support of at least three parties to garner the 76 seats needed to form a coalition. The most obvious candidates would be the conservative-liberal VVD, the left-wing Labor Party (PvdA)-GreenLeft alliance and the Christian Democrats, but this could take months to happen.

Outgoing Prime Minister Dick Schoof predicted on Friday that Jetten’s job would be complex. “I think I’ll still be prime minister at Christmas, I’d be surprised if that happens.” [by then]”.

Schoof, the former Dutch intelligence chief, was chosen for the top job by Geert Wilders, who abandoned hopes of governing the country because his potential coalition partners did not support having a far-right prime minister.

Wilders won the last election in November 2023, and the government was only formed in July 2024. Eleven months later, he toppled his own government over a fight with coalition partners over asylum and immigration policy.