(12 Sep 2012) Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte cast his ballot in The Hague on Wednesday as voters across the country went to the polls in parliamentary elections.
Rutte, who is the leader of the free-market People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), is a close ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and supports her austerity agenda for reining in the debt crisis.
But many Dutch voters have begun questioning their role in the EU since the debt crisis erupted, feeling that their wealthy nation is paying too high a price to help bail out countries like Greece and Portugal.
The election has boiled down to a tight race between the VVD party and the centre-left Labour Party led by Diederik Samsom, with other parties trailing.
Rutte says the Netherlands faces a fundamental choice: the left's solution of spending on job-creation programmes while government debt rises, or the austerity approach he has pursued with Merkel - bringing down the budget deficit while investing in roads and education to stimulate the economy.
Rutte's minority coalition collapsed in April after just 18 months in office when anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders withdrew his support for the government following weeks of negotiations to hammer out an austerity package aimed at bringing the budget deficit back within European Union-mandated guidelines.
The Dutch proportional representation system and splintered political landscape guarantee a coalition government, and whichever party wins the most seats in the 150-seat Dutch House of Representatives will take the lead in choosing the parties to make up the next ruling coalition.
Wednesday's vote was the fifth election in the Netherlands in just over a decade and leaders say they want to form a coalition strong enough to survive its four-year term.
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