the party of the liberal Prime Minister Rutte at the head of the legislative elections

The liberal party of outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte won the legislative elections dominated by the Covid-19 pandemic on Wednesday March 17, according to exit polls. This result should allow him to lead his fourth government coalition. “I note that the result of this election is that the voters of the Netherlands gave my party a massive vote of confidence”Mark Rutte told reporters in parliament in The Hague.

At 9.45 p.m. Wednesday, these polls credited the Liberals with 36 seats out of 150 in the lower house of parliament, against 33 in the outgoing assembly, and attributed 27 seats to D66 (center left) and 17 to the MP’s Freedom Party PVV. anti-Islam Geert Wilders, with whom the main parties have already ruled out forming a coalition.

These legislative measures had been adapted because of the Covid-19, in particular by taking place over three days, and they were considered as a test of the management of the epidemic by the current government. The ballot boxes were in unusual places such as the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, hotels, train stations, churches and testing centers all over the Netherlands, where you could sometimes vote by bike or car.

Nicknamed the Prime Minister “Teflon” for his ability to emerge unscathed from political crises, Mark Rutte was nevertheless forced to resign in January after thousands of parents were wrongly accused of fraud in family allowances. His government, however, remained in place to deal with day-to-day business.