(13 Sep 2012) An exit poll predicted a narrow election victory Wednesday for Prime Minister Mark Rutte's free-market and pro-European Union VVD party, but the result was considered too close to call.
The poll, commissioned by the two biggest Dutch news broadcasters, gave VVD 41 of the House of Representatives' 150 seats and the centre-left Labour Party 40 votes.
It has a 1.5 percent margin of error. If official results bear out the poll, the result would set up VVD and Labour - both pro-Europe parties - to forge a two-party ruling coalition with Rutte returning for a second term as prime minister.
Both parties won an extra 10 seats compared with the last parliament.
Final results were not expected until early Thursday.
Rutte was greeted by a cheering mass of party faithful at a beachside hotel in The Hague and immediately reached out to Samsom, congratulating the Labour leader for a "magnificent performance."
But Rutte also called the vote an endorsement of his last government's right-wing policy, while Samsom said he wanted change.
"This is a strong boost for the agenda that we have laid out for the Netherlands, to go on with our policy in this splendid country," Rutte said.
In Amsterdam, Samsom celebrated the results and demonstrated the spirit of coalition that is likely to follow.
"The Netherlands need as soon as possible strong and stable government, and the Labour party (PvdA) will cooperate on this cause from tonight on," he said.
The election was cast as a virtual referendum on Europe amid the continent's crippling debt crisis, but the result was a stark rejection of the most radical critic of the EU, anti-Islam firebrand Geert Wilders, whose Freedom Party was forecast to win 13 seats, 11 fewer than at the last election.
Wilders appeared to have been punished by voters for walking out of talks with Rutte in April to hammer out an austerity package to rein in the Dutch budget deficit.
The result was a victory for pro-European forces in the Netherlands, a founding member of the EU whose export-driven economy has benefited from the bloc's open market.

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