Van Buitenen krijgt twee zetels in Europees Parlement (en)

With 99.1% of the votes counted, the European elections in the Netherlands have brought a spectacular entry into the European Parliament of the famous whistleblower Paul van Buitenen, while the governing centre-right coalition suffered a major blow.

Together with the UK, the Netherlands was the first country to vote on Thursday (10 June). Votes were counted by local authorities and gathered by the Dutch Press Agency, ANP.

Contrary to what polls had predicted, the anti-corruption candidate Paul van Buitenen, who contended for the first time, gained two seats (7.3 percent of the votes).

As European Commission assistant auditor, Mr van Buitenen became famous in 1998 for blowing the whistle on fraud and mismanagement inside the EU institutions, which ultimately led to the fall of the Santer Commission in the spring of 1999.

"I return to Brussels with a smile", Mr Van Buitenen said reacting to the results.

He interpreted the voters' message as a mandate to confront mismanagement in Brussels, rather than a vote against the EU itself.

"I will start to clean up things over there, because the people do not deserve the administration that is in place".

He added that anti-EU voters should have voted not for him, but for the eurosceptic Lijst Pim Fortuyn, which gained no seats at all.

Blow for the governing coalition

Meanwhile, the governing centre-right coalition suffered a major blow, with all three coalition parties losing seats.

The Christian Democrats, the party of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, led the field but its percentage of votes dropped by 2.4 points to 24.5% and were almost taken over by the opposition Labour Party, which polled 23.6% (+3.5).

The Labour Party's national leader Wouter Bos claimed that the result was a sanction vote against the Dutch government, stating: "The coalition lost one fifth of its votes."

Prime Minister Balkenende also explained the result in national terms, saying that it was due to his party taking "responsibility in difficult times".

The right-liberal coalition party VVD proved the biggest loser of last night's vote, getting 13.1% compared to 20.7% in 1999, while the left-liberals also dropped substantially from 5.8% to 4.2%.

This means that the liberal ELDR group in the European Parliament will lose 3 Dutch seats.

The Greens were also hit by yesterday's vote, slipping to 7.4% (- 4.4), whereas the eurosceptic leftist Socialist Party managed to poll 6.9% (+ 2).

Higher turnout means "turning point"

All parties were pleased with the turnout rate of 39.1%, which proved remarkably higher than in 1999 when the Dutch scored the second-lowest turnout in the EU - at 29.9%

"This means that Europe appeals more to people's imagination", said Mr Balkenende.

The official result of the Dutch elections will be announced by the Dutch Electoral Council on 15 June. It will include the division of seats and the processing of the so-called "preference votes" on specific candidates.

It should differ only slightly from the results released last night.