D66 wins Dutch election, Jetten set to be youngest, openly gay PM

A near-complete national tally projected on Friday that the centrist liberal Democrats 66 narrowly won Wednesday’s parliamentary election in the Netherlands, putting party leader Rob Jetten on track to become the country’s youngest and its first openly gay prime minister. Election officials said the result cannot now be overtaken by the Party for Freedom led by Geert Wilders, though final confirmation awaits the counting of postal ballots from Dutch citizens abroad and a formal declaration by the Electoral Council early next week.

The vote reshaped a parliament fractured across the political spectrum. Under the current distribution of seats D66 surged from single digits to roughly one-sixth of the 150-seat House of Representatives, while Wilders’s party lost ground from its strong showing in 2023. Most tallies show both parties sitting at about 26 seats each, with the possibility that D66 could gain an additional seat as remaining ballots are added. Conservative-liberal and centre-right parties, including the VVD and the Christian Democratic Appeal, and the GreenLeft-Labour alliance are placed behind them, leaving no single party close to the 76 seats needed to govern alone.