Pandemic key issue as Dutch cast ballots
A man casts his vote at a drive-thru polling station in the Dutch city of Oss on Wednesday.
Dutch voters cast their ballots at polling stations and museums on Wednesday in an election that Prime Minister Mark Rutte cast as a choice of the best leader to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.
Europe’s first COVID election of 2021 has taken place over three days, with the elderly and at-risk voting at selected locations on Monday and Tuesday before the polls opened for everyone else yesterday.
Seeking a fourth term in office after a decade in power, Rutte said he was “cautiously” optimistic as he arrived on his bike to cast his vote at a school in the city of The Hague.
Opinion polls show his liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) on course to lead another coalition government, with the anti-Islam Freedom Party (PVV) in second place.
“I am proud of what we have achieved in the last 10 years in the Netherlands,” he told reporters, adding that it was “the best performing economy in the whole of Europe.
“The main question during these elections on the table is who best can lead this country forward through the crisis of corona, and then make a new start with this country, I hope from summer onwards.”
Rutte also rejected criticism of the slow-starting Dutch vaccination program, saying that buying the jabs was “a European issue” but the Netherlands was “working very hard to apply the ones we have and to make the most of a success out of it.”
With a near-record 37 parties in the mix, and months of coalition talks looming in the fractured Dutch parliamentary scene, the shape of any future government is still up in the air.
Rutte has dipped slightly in the polls but still has around 25 percent of the vote, which would give the VVD slightly more than their current 32 of the 150 seats in parliament. His closest rival, Geert Wilders, is on around 13 percent.
The Netherlands has recorded more than 1.1 million coronavirus infections and more than 16,000 deaths, and is currently under its most stringent health measures yet.
Voting closes at 9pm local time.
