PVV wint Maastricht!
Dutch PM Rutte's VVD emerges top in first exit poll
Welcome to our rolling coverage of the Dutch election, with the latest news, views and reactions to the divisive race.
Read: What you need to know about the Dutch elections
All updates in Central European Time (CET)
02:35 Geert Wilders has congratulated Mark Rutte on the VVD's election victory.
"Congratulations to Prime Minister Rutte," Wilders told reporters in the Hague. The leader of the PVV said he would be ready to work with the new government, if invited to do so. However, other Dutch parties have promised not to cooperate with the PVV.
Though the PVV landed a distant third, the populist party picked up seats in comparison to the last elections in 2012. The PVV also won the largest share of votes in Maastricht as well as in Wilders' hometown of Venlo.
01:11 Here are the preliminary results:
00:47 As of the first hours of Thursday morning, the national news agency ANP has completed 10.3 percent of an unofficial partial vote count. Rutte's VVD is projected to take 32 seats total while Wilders' PVV will pick up 20, a fair bit shy of the 30 plus seats some analysts expected the far-right politician to gain. D66 and the Green-Left are expected to earn 17 and 15 seats respectively, while the PvdA is predicted to drop into the single digits with nine seats.
Dutch PM Rutte's VVD emerges top in first exit poll
Dutch PM Rutte has claimed victory in elections in the Netherlands that saw his party beat out far-right challenger Wilders. Some see the Dutch poll as a litmus test for populists ahead of French and German elections.