The right-wing Liberals VVD and Labour have both won 31 seats in the new parliament according to the definitive exit poll from the three combined news organisations Nos, RTL and ANP. This represents a gain of nine seats for the VVD and a loss of two for Labour.

The poll puts Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam PVV on 22 seats – up from nine at present, and well above opinion poll forecasts.
Outgoing prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende’s CDA is on 21 in the poll, down from 41 at present.
Margin of error
Commentators are quick to point out that the margin of error in the poll can mount up to two seats.
Nevertheless, the poll indicates it will take four parties to form a new coalition government, and makes it doubtful the Netherlands will have a right-wing government. An alliance of the Liberals, CDA and PVV would have 74 seats in parliament.
Purple plus, an alliance of the VVD, Labour, D66 and GroenLinks would have 83 seats.
Smaller parties
The Socialist Party is on 16 seats, down from 25 four years ago. But both GroenLinks and the Liberal democrats D66 have won seats. GroenLinks is up four at 11 while D66 is up from three to 10.
Orthodox Christian party ChristenUnie is down one seat at five while the fundamentalist SGP, which does not believe women should vote, remains on two.
The animal rights party PvdD would lose one seat to take just one while Rita Verdonk’s TON will disappear from parliament.
Wednesday’s turnout was 74% (provisional figure ), the lowest since 1998, reports Nos. In the last general election in 2006 some 80.4% of the electorate voted.

What will the make-up of the next government be? Take part in our poll