THE NETHERLANDS: The Netherlands has moved sharply to the right in an election that could put the anti-immigration party of the late Pim Fortuyn in government.
Exit polls released minutes after voting ended put the murdered politician's List Pim Fortuyn in joint second place with the outgoing Social Democrats and the Liberal VVD.
The Centre-Right Christian Democrats were the big winners and they are expected to win 41 seats in parliament compared with 29 in 1998.
The Social Democrats of outgoing Prime Minister Wim Kok saw their vote collapse and looked set to lose almost half of their 45 seats in parliament.
Political analysts predicted that the Christian Democrats will form a coalition with the Liberal VVD and List Pim Fortuyn. Mr Fortuyn won popularity in the Netherlands with calls for a halt to immigration, especially of Muslims.
A 32-year old animal rights activist has been charged with his murder.
Voting was brisk yesterday. Pundits had predicted Fortuyn's murder in a car park nine days ago by a suspected animal rights activist would prompt a far higher turnout than the 73.3 per cent recorded in the 1998 election.
Political campaigning was suspended last week after Mr Fortuyn's murder and there were few election posters to be seen in Rotterdam yesterday. At a polling booth in the town hall, voters were outnumbered by reporters and camera teams. Outside, the flowers left in memory of Mr Fortuyn have started to wilt and some Dutch commentators predict that the List Pim Fortuyn will disintegrate within weeks. But Mr Michiel Smit, one of the party's representatives on Rotterdam city council, argues that the inexperience of its candidates has been exaggerated.
"There are many people who are doctors or attorneys. These are not a bunch of idiots," he said. Mr Smit, a 25 year-old businessman who runs an employment website, acknowledged that List Pim Fortuyn has no party structure and that there is no obvious successor to Mr Fortuyn. But he said that the party would conduct coalition negotiations responsibly, probably with the Christian Democrats.
He praised the Christian Democrat leader, Mr Jan Peter Balkenende, for avoiding the negative campaigning against Mr Fortuyn that some of the late politician's followers believe led to the assassination. And he said that, during the past eight years, the Social Democrats had replaced the centre-right as the political establishment. "What the Christian Democrats were before, the Social Democrats are now," he said. Mr Balkenende, who became Christian Democrat leader just six months ago, is expected to become Holland's next prime minister. A youthful 46 year-old who is often described as a Harry Potter lookalike, Mr Balkenende is liberal on most social issues but tough on crime.
Controversially, he wants to toughen up Holland's liberal rules on soft drugs such as marijuana.
Visitors continued to arrive at Mr Fortuyn's villa in Rotterdam yesterday, some leaving notes promising to vote for him although he is dead.
"You were the one for us, you are the one for us and you will remain the one for us," read one message.
Mr Rob Harmsen, a 23 year-old environmental science student, said he wanted to pay his respects to Mr Fortuyn but added that he would not vote for his party. He said he had only one friend who had decided to back List Pim Fortuyn but he felt certain that the Social Democrats would be punished.
"Things have improved over the past eight years but for the Dutch, they haven't improved enough. They want more. It's the nature of the Dutch that they don't see the good things, they only see the bad things," he said.
The Dutch election extended a trend that has seen left-leaning governments fall in the past 12 months in elections in Italy, Denmark, Portugal and France, with support increasing for populist far-right parties that have exploited concerns about crime, immigration and loss of national identity.