D66 leader Rob Jetten, who is likely to become the next prime minister of the Netherlands, told a cheering crowd in Leiden that the Dutch had said goodbye to the politics of negativity and chosen to look to the future.

D66 emerged as the biggest party in the NOS exit poll, with 27 seats in the 150-seat parliament, although there is a two-seat margin of error.

“We know millions of people voted for other parties, and we will do all we can to think big and work to move the Netherlands forward,” Jetten said.

“That will take political leadership from all the parties in the political centre,” he said, with a nod to the coalition building process which will start in the coming days. “The Dutch are looking to all of us and how we are going to form a stable coalition. We are closing the Wilders chapter and working for all the Dutch.”

Wilders not sorry

PVV leader Geert Wilders said he had hoped for a different result but added that the party could still emerge as the largest. In the NOS exit poll, support for the far-right party fell from 37 to 25 seats, a drop of 12 MPs.

Wilders sparked the collapse of the current coalition in the summer by withdrawing his ministers in a dispute over tighter asylum rules. Since then all the other big parties have said they will not form a coalition with him again.

He said his party had shown backbone by leaving the coalition government and that he had no regrets about doing so. He added that the refusal of many parties to form a new cabinet with the PVV may have led some supporters to vote elsewhere.

“We still have 1.7 million voters and are still a very big party in the Netherlands,” he said.

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