Overview
- Final counting left D66 roughly 28,000 votes ahead after overseas postal ballots, a margin too small to add a parliamentary seat.
- D66 and Geert Wilders’ PVV each hold about 26 seats, leaving the 150-seat chamber without a majority and requiring multi-party negotiations.
- If selected by a coalition, the 38-year-old D66 leader would become the Netherlands’ first openly gay and youngest prime minister.
- Jetten campaigned on cutting energy bills with homegrown green power, accelerating housing construction, prioritizing education, and requiring asylum applications to be filed from outside the EU.
- Talks to assemble a governing bloc are expected to be lengthy, as responses to Jetten’s rise range from progressive celebration to criticism from conservative religious media.