With 97% of the votes counted, it now appears that the VVD (Liberals, economic right) has become the largest party by the smallest of margins: they have 31 seats (out of 150) while the PvdA (Social Democrats, left) have 30. The opinion polls indicated that the margin would be substantially larger. Being the largest party matters greatly as it usually means that you get to take the initiative to form a coalition government and deliver the prime-minister. The traditional powerhouse in Dutch politics CDA (Christian Democrats, centrists) lost 20 seats (it now has only 21 seats) and its party leader Balkenende (Dutch prime-minister for the past 8 years) has resigned.
The anti-Islamist PVV (Geert Wilders) did much better than expected by the polls, making his party the third largest with 24 seats (up from 9). The discrepancy between the opinion polls and the actual votes is widely attributed to what Americans call the Bradley effect but the Dutch name the “curtain effect”: the idea that people do things behind the curtains of a voting booth that they are hesitant to admit openly.* On the other hand, exit polls were pretty close to the actual results so it may also be due to strategic voting: people may have switched from their intended VVD vote as they thought the VVD was going to be the largest and they did not want the VVD to form a coalition with the left. Or, it could simply be the fairly large percentage of voters who didn’t make up their minds until the last moment. The election market was equally bad: underestimating the PVV vote by 6 seats and predicting a 5 seat gap between PvdA and VVD.
To say that coalition formation is going to be rough would be an understatement. Most within the VVD either want a coalition with the CDA and PvdA or with CDA and PVV. A coalition with the PVV would be a minimal one, making it dependent on whatever motley crew of individuals Wilders has managed to put together (always a problem with parties that suddenly become very large). This will make the CDA pause as they just lost half their seats. They may well think that it is not so great to be a junior partner in a coalition government: Better to sit this one out and bounce back (which is what they did the only other time they lost this bad in 1994). The PvdA has rejected any possibility to govern with the PVV and prefers a “purple coalition” with the VVD, D’66 (a centrist liberal party with 10 seats), and the Greens (left, 10 seats). This is hardly ideal for the VVD. They would be outnumbered by parties of the economic left when they campaigned so hard on economic reforms from the right. The ball is in the VVD’s court. Given that the PVV won so substantially, it would be difficult for the VVD not to at least have talks with them. Of course this puts the CDA in an odd power broker situation given how badly they were beaten up. For what it’s worth, the election markets now put the chance of a purple coalition at 60% and have the CDA/VVD/PVV coalition at 10%.
*The Dutch have a thing with curtains: we generally have them but don’t close them, allowing passers-by to look in. Some people think that this is a way for housewives to show that they keep the house clean. My theory is that high population density has made us eager to know what goes on next door. All kinds of unspeakable things may happen behind closed curtains. Better to show your neighbors that no funny stuff is happening inside your house.