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2012 Dutch general election
Election of the members of the House of Representatives / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Early general elections were held in the Netherlands on 12 September 2012[1] after Prime Minister Mark Rutte handed in his government's resignation to Queen Beatrix on 23 April. The 150 seats of the House of Representatives were contested using party-list proportional representation. The People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) received a plurality of the votes, followed by the Labour Party (PvdA).
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All 150 seats in the House of Representatives 76 seats needed for a majority | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Turnout | 74.6% (![]() | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.
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Prior to the election, polls had predicted an increase in support for the Socialist Party, primarily at the expense of the PvdA,[2] but the PvdA regained support during the campaign, which was attributed to the leadership of Diederik Samsom[3] and in the election the Socialist Party failed to improve its performance. The Party for Freedom (PVV) and Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) both lost seats.
After 49 days of negotiations, a new VVD-PvdA centrist government was formed on 5 November 2012, comprising Mark Rutte as prime minister along with 7 VVD ministers and 6 PvdA ministers.[4]
It was the first Netherlands-wide election in which the Caribbean Netherlands participated.[5]