By Bruno Waterfield - 23rd November 2006
Dutch centre-right leader Jan Peter Balkenende faces weeks of political horse-trading to build a coalition government after elections in the Netherlands.
Non-mainstream political parties were the main beneficiaries of a fragmented poll marked by a protest vote against the political establishment.
Balkenende’s Christian Democrats remained the Netherland's largest party with 41 of 150 seats in the Dutch parliament, according to early results.
The rightwing, liberal VVD, Balkenende’s former coalition partners, dropped six seats to take 22.
The centre-left Labour Party did badly at the polls, along with the centre-right and liberals, losing 10 seats and securing 32.
Wednesday’s polls were marked mainly by huge gains for the far-left, and anti-EU, Socialist Party, which won 26 seats, a nearly threefold increase.
The right-wing populist Freedom Party, led by controversial Islam critic Geert Wilders, a former VVD MP, won nine seats.
Animal rights campaigners, in the Party for Animals, scored a European first winning two seats.
The results will bring no relief to European officials and diplomats who hoped that the elections could bury last year’s Dutch referendum rejection of the EU constitution.
Dutch voters plunged the EU into crisis with a resounding 61.5 per cent “nee” which followed hot on the heels of a French “non” in June 2005.
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