Exit polls showed victory in the elections in the Netherlands for the party of the current prime minister

The center-right People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, which has the most seats in the current parliament, is winning the elections to the lower house of the Dutch parliament, according to exit polls.

Exit polls show that the party, led by incumbent Prime Minister Mark Rutte, will win 31 out of 150 parliamentary seats - ten fewer than the current composition.

Geert Wilders' nationalist Freedom Party, the Christian Democratic Appeal and the left-liberal Democrats 66 are all set to increase their representation to 19 seats, according to polls.

The left-wing Labor Party, which won 38 seats in the 2012 elections and formed a government together with the Rutte party, will win nine seats in the new composition, exit polls show.

In percentage terms, the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy received, according to polls, 20.6 percent of the vote, the Christian Democratic Appeal - 12.7 percent, the Freedom Party and Democrats 66 - 12.6 each.

• Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders went to the polls with proposals for the "de-Islamization" of the Netherlands, which, in his opinion, included a ban on the Koran, the closure of mosques and restrictions on the entry of migrants.
• Wilders' party led the polls from autumn 2016 to the end of February 2017. Many considered her victory likely against the backdrop of the results of the US presidential election and the referendum on Britain's exit from the EU, the results of which most analysts failed to predict.
• Opinion polls taken on the eve of the elections predicted that the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy would win the majority. The Freedom Party and the Christian Democratic Appeal tied for second and third with roughly equal results.
• In the Netherlands, the government is usually formed by the leader of the party that wins elections to the lower house of parliament. The government turns out to be a coalition: not a single party has received an absolute majority in the lower house since the end of the 19th century.