Dutch exit poll predicts narrow win for Rutte

September 12, 2012 | Modified: September 12, 2012 at 4:04 pm
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CORRECTING TO SWAP NAMES OF CHILDREN - Labour Party PvdA leader Diederik Samsom casts his vote for parliamentary elections as his six-year-old son Fane, left, and eleven-year-old daughter Benthe, center rear, look on at a polling station in Leiden, central Netherlands, Wednesday Sept. 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — An exit poll commissioned by the two biggest Dutch news broadcasters has predicted a narrow election victory for the Prime Minister Mark Rutte's free-market VVD party.

The exit poll, which will be updated with late votes, gave the VVD 41 of the House of Representatives' 150 seats and the center-left Labor Party 40 votes. The poll has a 1.5 percent margin of error, and the broadcasters said the final result was still too close to call.

If official results bear out the poll, the result would set up the possibility of VVD and Labor — both pro-Europe parties — forging a two-party ruling coalition with Rutte returning for a second term as prime minister.