Excerpt:
Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende and his Christian Democrats have suffered a crushing defeat in Wednesday's parliamentary elections in the Netherlands. The party only managed to finish fourth, behind even the Freedom Party of anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders.
Results were tight on election night, but by Thursday morning it appeared that the liberal-conservative VVD managed to come out ahead of the center-left Labor Party (PvdA). With 96.5 percent of the votes counted, Mark Rutte's VVD was ahead on Thursday morning with 31 of the 150 seats in the future parliament, while the PvdA had 30 seats.
Rutte called the VVD's result "a splendid victory." "It appears as if for the first time in our history the VVD has become the largest party in the Netherlands," he told supporters in the town of Scheveningen.