In the Netherlands, early parliamentary elections are held. The victory is visited by Christian democrats

On Wednesday in the Netherlands, universal early parliamentary elections are held, in which 19 political parties and independent candidates are fighting for places in the Second Chamber of the General States - the national parliament consisting of 150 deputies, ITAR -TASS reports.

Deputies to the Dutch parliament are elected for a period of 4 years on the basis of a proportional representation. This means that if the party is gaining, for example, 20% of the vote, it can count on 20% of the places in parliament.

The peculiarity of the current elections is that the party of the Christian Democratic appeal (CDP), led by Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenend, is one of the favorites of the election race, and the party that won the election, in the person of the so-called informant, traditionally conducts negotiations on the formation of a new government.

Her candidate, as a rule, also becomes the Prime Minister of the Netherlands. Thus, political scientists do not exclude that the "Fourth Balkenend Cabinet" may come to power. Currently, the leader of the CDP and the youngest prime minister in the history of the country, first appointed for this post at the age of 46 in 2002, heads the Government of the Netherlands for the third time. The pragmatist and realist Balkenend, starting from the first period of his stay in the current post, managed to carry out a number of radical reforms in the field of pension, healthcare and housing financing in the country.

Sociologists are sure that none of the parties will be able to get the absolute majority necessary for the formation of a one -party government, and it will be coalition, as in the previous decades.

If you believe the ratings and forecasts, universal elections on Wednesday should not lead to radical changes: Christian democrats will retain the parliamentary majority, and the Laborists will confidently take the second place, the BBC Russian service reports.

Whether these forecasts will be justified - they will show the election results. Preliminary results will be known late in the evening after the closing of polling stations at 23 hours Moscow time.

In the current elections, citizens of the Netherlands who have reached the age of 18 and have the right to vote take part. The current elections differ from this, for example, elections to local authorities, in which not only the Dutch can take part, but also foreigners living here for at least 5 years. More than 12 million people have the right to vote in the current elections in 16 million Netherlands.

If with a probable alignment of forces it is more or less clear, then the intrigue regarding the one who will prefer immigrants on Wednesday, in particular from Turkey, the number of which in the Netherlands is about 150,000 people from the total almost millionth number of the country's Muslim population, persist. In addition, the attitude of various political forces towards immigration was one of the most discussed issues throughout the election campaign.

In the conditions of this situation, on the agenda of the new cabinet of ministers, the old question will probably remain: how to reduce the overwhelming ethnic confrontation in the once tolerant and liberal country and how to integrate the 6% of the Muslim population into the Dutch society, whose needs for decades remained outside the sphere of interests of leading political forces.