Some 250,000 Dutch voters go to the polls in four local authority areas on Wednesday in what is being seen as the first real popularity test for the current coalition.

Boundary changes mean new councils have to be elected in Alphen aan den Rijn, De Friese Meren, Heerenveen and Leeuwarden. The rest of the Netherlands votes in local elections on March 19.

The polling stations are open from 07.30 to 21.00 hours in most places.

‘If the results are bad for us, which I don’t expect they will be, then we have done a bad job in The Hague,’ Bram Van Ojik, leader of the green party GroenLinks, told Nos television.