AMSTERDAM — In a closely watched election, Dutch
voters appeared on Wednesday to give Prime Minister Mark Rutte and his
center-right Liberal Party a narrow victory over the center-left Labor Party,
which will bring a sigh of relief to European allies anxious about rising euro
skepticism in the richer countries of the north.
Vincent Jannink/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
A voter on Wednesday in Marle in the Westhoff family’s living
room, the smallest polling station for the Dutch general elections.
Up to 40 percent of voters were estimated to be
undecided until the end, weary of politicians in the fifth election in 10 years
and nervous about their own well-being during an economic recession in the euro
zone. But they appeared to settle on the two mainstream parties, rejecting
more extreme calls for the Dutch to abandon the euro.
With 98 percent of votes counted Thursday, Mr. Rutte’s
party won 41 seats out of 150 at stake and Labor, led by a fresh-faced leader,
Diederik Samsom, won 39. That would make a governing coalition of the two
parties possible, but negotiations will be difficult.
Mr. Rutte has called Labor “dangerous” and has taken a
harder line toward further help for troubled euro zone countries like Greece
than Mr. Samsom. Mr. Rutte has also pushed more private-market solutions for
health care and social benefits than Mr. Samsom.
But even out of government, Labor has supported Mr.
Rutte’s departing coalition on crucial European votes, and both parties believe
firmly in remaining inside the 27-nation European
Union and preserving the euro as a common currency among the 17 member
nations that use it.
But Mr. Rutte is also seen as a firm ally of Germany’s
chancellor, Angela
Merkel, and her focus on budget-cutting and fiscal discipline as the answer
to the euro’s problems. He has been tough on giving more time to Greece
and is a strong opponent of further moves toward European federalism or
political unity.
Geert
Wilders’s anti-immigrant Freedom Party, which campaigned for the Dutch to
exit the European Union, won 15 seats. But Mr. Wilders’s party lost 9 seats from
what it holds in the current Parliament.
Mr. Rutte had to depend on Mr. Wilders’s support in
Parliament to preserve the last government, which fell when Mr. Wilders refused
to support budget cuts to reach a deficit of 3 percent of gross domestic
product, as mandated by the European Union. Mr. Wilders was heavily criticized
for irresponsibility in bringing the government down and appeared to have been
punished by the voters for it.
The Christian Democrats, which once governed,
continued their collapse, losing another 8 seats, leaving them with 13. The
pro-Europe centrist D66 Party won 2 more seats, ending up with a total of 12,
the poll said.
The weak showing of the Socialists made it less likely
that Labor could form a majority coalition with them, even adding D66 to the
mix. But it is possible that D66 will be part of the final coalition that
results from party negotiations, which traditionally take weeks.
Ideally any coalition would also have a majority in
the upper house, so a coalition of three or four parties may be the final
result, with both D66 and the Christian Democrats asked to join.