Centrists claim victory over far-right in Dutch elections

The centrist liberal D66 has officially beaten the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) and become the biggest winner of this week's nail-biting snap parliamentary election race.

With nearly all votes counted, Dutch press agency ANP announced that Geert Wilders' PVV no longer has a chance at overtaking the D66 led by Rob Jetten.

The remaining votes come from just one municipality, Venray, where a fire that broke out in the town hall delayed ballot counting. Also remaining are the mail-in ballots from voters living abroad, which will be announced by Monday. The latest tally shows a 15,155-vote lead for D66.

The D66 — short for Democrats 66, also named after the year the party was founded, 1966 — made significant gains, rising from just nine seats in parliament to 26.

According to ANP, which collects results from all Dutch municipalities, it is also possible that D66 will gain a residual seat, bringing its total to 27 MPs.

Their win means they will take the first initiative in forming a coalition, and puts Jetten as a likely candidate for prime minister.

Jetten, 38, told reporters he was "very proud of this historic result" and now felt a great responsibility to form a stable and ambitious government.

Wilders had led opinion polls going into Wednesday's election, but Rob Jetten succeeded in winning in some of the main Dutch cities including Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht with a positive campaign using a catchphrase of "Yes, we can".

No Dutch election race has ever been so close, and if Jetten does become prime minister he will be the youngest in Dutch history.

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

Wilders said even if D66 did go on to become the biggest party, his Freedom Party (PVV) would "not let the Netherlands be broken up by Jetten and his people".

Jetten told reporters that his party had "shown to the rest of Europe and the world that it is possible to beat the populist movements if you campaign with a positive message".

The Dutch electoral system is based on proportional representation in one nationwide constituency, so whichever party secures most votes wins most seats.

Jetten's liberals have so far won 16.9% of the vote, while Wilders' Freedom Party is on 16.7%. As results came in on Thursday, the race was so close that the lead flipped between the two parties.

In a sign that he was not ready to concede victory, Wilders dubbed the Dutch news agency "ANP66" and shared unfounded claims from social media of vote-rigging. One local authority, in Zaanstad outside Amsterdam, rejected the allegation as "fabricated".