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THE HAGUE - The first exit polling data released after ballot boxes closed in the 2021 Dutch parliamentary election showed that Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and his right wing VVD party took the most votes for the fourth election in a row. The trend in increasing support for centrist party D66 and leader Sigrid Kaag also paid off, with that party taking second place.
The poll was produced by research firm Ipsos on behalf of Dutch broadcaster NOS, and was released after polls closed at 9 p.m. on Wednesday. A revised version will be released at 9:45 p.m.
Of the 150 seats in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, the VVD was on pace to win two more spots to bring its total to 35 seats, and D66 was on track to jump from 19 seats up to 27.
Far-right leader Geert Wilders and his PVV looked to be down three seats to 17, and the CDA was set to drop five seats down to 14. However that was not the largest decrease of the night, with left wing parties GroenLinks and and the SP socialists apparently each losing six seats with both parties securing eight slots in total.
The far-right party FvD saw a jump of five seats to seven, and newcomer Ja21 which broke off from the FvD earlier this year, could enter the next Tweede Kamer session with three seat.
Three other parties will also enter the lower house for the first time, with Volt winning four seats, BBB taking one, and Bij1 winning one.
Some 1,579 people representing 37 parties in the Netherlands were allowed to participate in the parliamentary elections. While the number of parties was a record for elections held after World War II, it was still fewer than the 53 parties which took part in the 1922 election.
Of the 17.5 million people living in the Netherlands, including children and immigrants, about 13.2 million Dutch people were allowed to vote in the election. That includes the 93 thousand citizens who were registered to vote from abroad, and the 2.4 million resident citizens aged 70 and up allowed to vote by mail.
The last analysis of all major polls in the Netherlands, the Peilingwijzer released on Tuesday, had the VVD as the clear leader with 36 to 38 projected parliamentary seats. The PVV (18 to 20), CDA (16 to 18) and D66 (17 to 19) were all competing for second place. At the time, the D66 was climbing in the polls, the CDA falling. The left-wing parties were also all close together with GroenLinks at between 9 and 11 seats, SP at between 10 and 12, and PvdA at between 11 and 13.
The turnout after the first two days of voting was 12 percent. By 11:45 a.m. on Wednesday, that had climbed to 42 percent, according to Ipsos. This includes some of the postal votes. At the same time in the previous parliamentary election in 2017, the turnout was at 33 percent. Though Ipsos stressed that the two elections can't really be compared, as this year had extra days of voting and large numbers of elderly people voting by mail due to the coronavirus pandemic.