Centrist D66 party expected to win most seats in Netherlands election – as it happened

Armida van Rij, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, has this take on today’s election: “Two years after the last election and a highly unstable coalition, this is the Netherlands’ opportunity to bring back stability to the country. It faces a number of pressuring policy issues:housing shortages, maintaining affordable care and, increasingly, concerns about rule of law in the country.

The liberal-populist-far right coalition failed to address any of these challenges,and in some cases exacerbated them.

Yet these are the third elections in 5 years’ time and the support for Geert Wilders remains high, making it difficult for other parties to form a majority government without him.”