Official results confirm VVD's win in Dutch polls

The official results of the Dutch elections confirmed the rightist liberals VVD's victory over the far-rightist PVV, with VVD winning 33 out of 150 seats in the lower house of the parliament and PVV 20 seats, the Dutch Electoral Council announced at a public session on Tuesday.

Jan-Kees Wiebenga, chairman of the Dutch Electoral Council, said that there were no major irregularities during the voting day.

"Of course not anything went well," he said, referring to irregularities in counting in Rotterdam and Den Bosch, a shortage of ballots in Nijmegen, and some voters abroad receiving their call to vote too late.

"For a recount there has to be a strong suspicion that the mistakes could influence the final division of seats. That was not the case," he said.

The VVD of outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte became the biggest party in the House of Representatives, ahead of the far-right Party for Freedom PVV that garnered 20 seats.

The Christian Democrats CDA and the leftist liberals D66 got 19 seats each, followed by the Socialist Party SP and green leftists GroenLinks with 14 seats each and the Labor PvdA nine, the official results showed.

Although the VVD remained the biggest party, it lost eight seats compared to the 2012 elections. The junior partner of the outgoing ruling coalition PvdA became the biggest loser with a massive loss of 29 seats compared to the previous elections, while the Socialist Party SP lost one seat.

The green lefties GroenLinks became the biggest winner with a rise of 10 seats from four to 14 seats, while PVV, CDA and D66 gained five, six and seven seats respectively, compared to in 2012.

The other seats went to the smaller parties, with ChristianUnion getting five, Party for Animals five, the party for elderly 50Plus four, Christian party SGP three, immigrant party DENK three, and the far-right populist party Forum voor Democratie two.

The new House of Representatives consists of 54 women and 96 men.

The turnout was 81.9 percent, which means a total of 10,563,456 voters out of the total of 12,893,466 eligible Dutch citizens casting their votes. The turnout was much higher than the turnout of 2012, which ultimately came out at 74.6 percent.

The process of forming a government coalition has started with outgoing Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport Edith Schippers being tasked of examining the preferred coalitions by talking to all 13 party leaders that garnered seats in the new parliament.

As winner of the elections, the VVD normally gets the initiative to form a government. VVD leader Mark Rutte expressed his preference for a "stable majority" coalition consisting of the VVD, the Christian Democrats CDA and the leftist liberals D66.

Regarding a fourth party, which is needed to get a majority in the House, Rutte mentioned Socialist Party SP, ChristianUnion ChristenUnie, GreenLeft GroenLinks and Labor PvdA as options. He excluded, just like other mainstream parties, cooperation with the anti-Islam ad anti-Europe party PVV.

It seems Schippers will look at a VVD, D66, CDA and GroenLinks coalition first, as she invited the leaders of these four parties first on Tuesday. She will have to present her first report by Wednesday and according to schedule the report will be discussed on Thursday in the parliament.

After the Brexit vote and Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election, a win for the VVD, instead of the far-right PVV, in Dutch elections, has offered huge relief to other governments across Europe facing a wave of populism.

European leaders sent congratulatory messages and the euro gained as the exit poll results unveiled soon after the voting closed on March 15 and pointed to a clear Rutte victory.