No extra seat for D66 after overseas votes declared in The Hague

The provisional seat totals for the Dutch have been confirmed, leaving both D66 and the PVV with 26 seats after the overseas votes were declared on Monday evening.

There had been speculation that D66 might snatch a seat from the Socialist Party under the formula used to distribute leftover votes, but the results meant the provisional seat numbers were unchanged.

The final results will be confirmed by the electoral council on Friday, but these will not differ from the votes declared by individual municipalities.

The outcome strengthens the case for the “broad coalition” favoured by D66 leader Rob Jetten of D66 with the left-wing alliance GL-PvdA, the right-wing liberal VVD and the Christian Democrats (CDA).

The VVD want to drop GL-PvdA for the hard right JA21, but this combination only has 75 seats in the new parliament, one short of a majority.

The centre-right coalition would also have far fewer seats in the Senate and include a party, JA21, with no previous experience of being in government at national level.

Jetten will have the first chance to form a coalition because D66 won 28,000 votes more than Geert Wilders’s far-right PVV.

Sources in The Hague told RTL Nieuws on Monday that Wouter Koolmees, the former D66 social affairs minister who is now head of the national train service NS, had been sounded out as the “scout”, the official who canvasses parties for their views on the make-up of the next coalition, prior to formation talks beginning.