HAGUE: Despite a campaign marked by attacks on Brussels, the leading Dutch parties wound up efforts on Tuesday to sway undecided voters to elect a grudgingly Europe-friendly government.
Wednesday's vote is shaping into a battle between current Prime Minister Mark Rutte's Liberal VVD party and rising star Diederick Samsom's centre-left PvdA Labour party, but neither will be able to govern alone.
Latest opinion polls predict a middle-of-the-road coalition government involving the pro-austerity VVD and pro-stimulus PvdA will emerge once an expected 12.5 million voters cast their ballots.
"It is as good as set in stone that we will get a 'middle' government that will remain pro-Europe," political analyst Alfred Pijpers told AFP of the eurozone's fifth-largest economy.
Commentators have compared fiscally prudent Rutte to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, while Samsom's calls for stimulus have drawn comparisons with France's Socialist President Francois Hollande, himself elected earlier this year on similar promises.
Polls give both Rutte's VVD and the PvdA of former Greenpeace activist Diederik Samsom 35 seats in the 150-seat lower house.
A coalition between the VVD, which garnered 31 seats in 2010 and the PvdA, which had 30, together with one or two smaller parties seems the most likely option to get a 76-seat majority.
Budget cuts in the founding EU member are already hitting Dutch pockets hard and weighing heavily on voters' minds. Analaysts say at least one million voters have yet to make up their mind on who to vote for.
Both the Liberals and Labour are pro-Europe but because of cuts to pay for spendthrift southern European countries, they are faced with an electorate that is increasingly negative towards Brussels although realistic about the impossibility of European disintegration.
"There is a general feeling although it's a perception that in Brussels it's about well-paid government officials with their interfering little rules," including in regards to Greece, said Bert van den Braak, a political analyst at Leiden University.
Rutte himself said in a debate Monday he would put the brakes on handing over further power to the European Union.
"I am 'Mr No' when it comes to a Brussels that's expanding more and more," he said. Samsom announced last week he had telephoned Hollande to discuss the eurozone debt crisis, setting his compass clearly more towards France than Germany.
Van den Braak however said Rutte's anti-Europe rhetoric might change after the election once he is confronted with the political reality of tackling the debt crisis: "The story can be told two ways."
Rotterdam's Erasmus School of Economics professor Bas Jacobs agreed. "Some parties will change their viewpoint after September 12," he wrote in the financial daily Financieele Dagblad on Tuesday.
The far-right anti-Islam party of platinum-haired politician Geert Wilders is set to win 19 seats, down five from the last election in 2010, a result analysts put down to a campaign based on a pure anti-Europe platform.
With opinion polls predicting a tight race, the focus Tuesday also shifted towards the political duel between Rutte, 45 and Samsom, 41, for the position of prime minister.
But whether the VVD or PvdA wins, there will be no seismic shift in the Netherlands' relationship with Brussels, analysts said.
The Dutch view closely aligned with that of Merkel in calling for strict cuts and rules to enforce austerity demands, is unlikely to change much, even if Samsom becomes prime minister.
Rutte has nevertheless said he is not keen for an alliance with Labour: "We don't want to replace the good 'Hague-Berlin' axis we have with a 'Hague-Paris axis," he said on Monday.
With weeks if not months of horsetrading expected before a coalition is finally agreed, Van deb Braak said: "The Netherlands simply has too much vested interest in Europe to leave it. It will continue on its current course and that is the reality."
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