Pro-business VVD party takes the lead in Dutch elections, tough coalition talks ahead

Pro-business party leads in Dutch election

AMSTERDAM — An anti-Islam party notched large gains in Dutch elections on Wednesday, but a contest between the two largest parties on the right and left remained too close to call.

With 91 percent of votes counted, the pro-business VVD party led Labor by 31 seats to 30 in the 150-seat parliament, a result that spelled weeks and possibly months of haggling to fashion a ruling coalition among parties deeply split on immigration and how to curb government spending.

The anti-Islam Freedom Party of Geert Wilders scored its best-ever finish with 24 seats.

The governing Christian Democrats suffered a humiliating defeat with 21 seats — nearly half its current strength — and Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende told supporters he was leaving politics. Balkenende, who has led the government for eight years, will remain caretaker premier until a new cabinet is installed.

The race was so tight that party leaders canceled their traditional postelection debate, saying they couldn’t discuss the results until they were sure what they were. Returns from the 12 million eligible voters were expected through the night, and the official results won’t be declared until June 15, when all votes from overseas have also been counted.

Neither party will be able to form a government without major comprises on ideology.

“It’s very exciting. But the real result is still to come, and it could go either way,” said Labor Party leader Job Cohen, the former mayor of Amsterdam who is vying to become prime minister.

The most likely outcome appears to be a centrist coalition with VVD and Labor combining with two smaller parties on the left, the Green-Left and Democrats-66.

In some scenarios Wilders and his Freedom Party could play a role, but his polarizing stances have made him unsavory to other parties. He is under hate speech prosecution for comparing Islam to Naziism and calling for a ban on the Quran.

Wilders enjoyed a surge of popularity last year with a program that included a tax on headscarves worn by Muslim women. But his popularity faded slightly ahead of the elections as attention shifted to the European financial crisis and the country’s deficit, now predicted to run at 6.3 percent of GDP this year.

Wilders said he was willing to accept compromises in order to enter a Cabinet.

Other parties may try “to shove us aside, but we must be taken seriously,” Wilders said, noting that his party had booked the largest gains.

Altogether, 10 parties will be represented in parliament.

The results were a stunning departure from pre-election polls, which had showed for weeks Mark Rutte’s VVD party holding a commanding lead and Labor a distant second.

Though the VVD didn’t do quite as well as expected, it added nine seats and Rutte proclaimed it “a splendid victory.”

“I won’t let anything get me down,” he told cheering supporters.

The VVD has pledged to slash the deficit by cutting government spending and welfare programs. Labor has criticized the program as harmful to the poor.

Labor wants to preserve government social programs, raise taxes on the wealthy and make it easier for immigrants to integrate rather than punishing those that fail.

Cohen resigned as Amsterdam mayor in March to lead his then-flagging party in the campaign.

The preliminary returns were compiled and released by Dutch news agency ANP.

The election was precipitated by Balkenende’s center-right coalition collapse in February over the Labor Party’s refusal to extend the Dutch military mission in Afghanistan. Afghanistan has barely been mentioned in the campaign, which instead focused on traditional issues of immigration and the economy.

“This country spends too much. For a lot of people it’s better to collect social security than to work,” said Willem Bosma, 32, a civil servant and VVD supporter casting his vote in Amsterdam’s main train station.

Although not as outspoken against immigration as Wilders, Rutte has also argued that immigrants who cannot contribute to the Dutch economy should not be allowed to come, and he would ban them from receiving welfare for 10 years after arrival.