Democrats 66 party leader Rob Jetten reacts to the first results in the Dutch general election, in Leiden, The Netherlands, on Wednesday, October 29, 2025. Photo by Robin Utrecht/EPA
Oct. 30 (UPI) — The centrist liberal Democrats 66 surged in Wednesday’s Dutch elections, finishing in a virtual tie with the far-right Party for Freedom for most seats in parliament, according to reports.
The PVV and D66 were poised to win 26 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, The NL Times and Dutch News reported.
D66 had received several thousand votes more than PVV, though vote counting was ongoing. About 98% of the votes had been counted. Turnout was 78.4%.
The vote is being viewed as a refutation of the PVV and its leader, Geert Wilders, as they lost 11 seats. The party had 37 seats from the 2023 general election.
D66 picked up 17, from the nine seats it held following the last election.
With no party winning a majority, a coalition government will need to be formed, the leader of which is currently uncertain, though D66’s leader, Rob Jetten, appears a likely candidate.
If Jetten is named prime minister, he would not only he the country’s youngest prime minister in modern history at 38 years of age but the first to be openly gay.
“The positive forces have won!” Jetten said on X.
“I want to get to work for all Dutch people, because this is the land of us all!”
Wilders took to social media to declare: “The voter has spoken.”
“We had hoped for a different outcome but we kept our backs straight,” he said.
“We are more determined to fight than ever and still the second and perhaps even largest party of the Netherlands.”
The D66 ran on a platform of “freedom for everyone, but nobody left behind” that emphasized housing and education, climate and energy issues and healthcare with an emphasis on strengthening democracy.
“We are social liberals,” an English-language party report states. “This means that for us, freedom is only real when everyone has the opportunity to truly be free.”
On the other side of the political aisle, the anti-Islam PVV took a hardline stance on most issues, including immigration, such as tightening asylum rules and strengthening border policies.
“Islam, without exception, is the greatest existential threat to our freedom,” the PVV said in a report on its policies. “Worldwide, Islam is the breeding ground for extremism, oppression and terror.”
The party is ultranationalist and stands against funding asylum, developing nations, Ukraine‘s defense, the European Union and the fight against climate change.
“A shopping cart full of groceries at a normal price, being able to turn on the heater without fainting at the energy bill, a roof over your head, affordable healthcare where visiting a doctor or dentist isn’t punished financially, a decent old-age pension — that is the Netherlands of the PVV,” it said.
The right-leaning People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy was poised to pick up the third-most seats in the election with 22 seats followed by the Christian Democratic Appeal party with 18.