Now, votes in the general election in the Netherlands are still being counted, but it seems that the veteran antiIslam politician Gertvilders has led his PVV party to the largest share of the vote. PVV, which translates into English as freedom, is said to take around 35 of the 150 seats. That won't be enough to govern alone. And several other parties have said they won't enter a coalition with the far right Mr. Vilders. He says the people want him to be Prime Minister.

The voters have spoken, the voters have determined that the PVV will become the largest party by far. It would be very undemocratic. And so I assume that it will not happen, that voters will be sidelined. Voters wouldn't accept that either. They'd find it terrible. I think we need to see where the common ground is and then we need to do business with each other because we have to help the Netherlands move forwards. The hope of so many people is that things must change in the Netherlands, that the influx of asylum seekers will be limited, that ordinary Dutch people will have more money in their pockets again, that homes will go back to the Dutch, that the Dutch will be put in the first place again.

Well, we can go live now to our correspondent Anna Holligan in The Hague. And Anna, let's just take a step back and take stock of this moment. Just how significant is this result for the Netherlands?

Seismic. And there's no doubt the tremors will be felt in Brussels this morning. This results as a headache. If he actually manages to go ahead and become Prime Minister to convince enough parties to work with him in coalition, it will be an absolute nightmare for the European Union. This is the Prime Minister's office just behind me here in the Dutch Parliament. The big question is who will be occupying it in a few months'time. That's as long as it could take in order to negotiate a new government. You heard vildeus. There talk about some of the issues that have really dominated this campaign. So for example, migration, but talked about in pragmatic rather than inflammatory terms, the cost of living cris, a new term bastard Zekerheide, the security of existence, the shortage of affordable homes. And actually during the last few days, his party surged in the polls. And if you are not familiar with Garrett Vilders, he's a radical politician. He's been in Parliament for around 25 years. He's anti Islam, anti immigration, but we've already had a kind of indication that he may be prepared to compromise in order to convince enough parties to go into coalition with him.

And you mentioned 35 seats there. We've just had an update. It's looking as though he has managed to secure 37 seats in Parliament, about 2.3 million votes. That, to put it in context, is more than the VVD, the Conservative Liberal Party of Mark Rusta secured in the last two elections. So to say seismic is perhaps even an understatement.

Anna and a big challenge for the other parties in the Netherlands, because, as you mentioned there, they've shunned Mr Builders over the years. Over the decades, they now have to decide whether to support him in forming a government because he does have the popular vote, it seems.

Exactly as you say, Catherine. So that will be the real challenge now, because, as Gert Wilder said last night, he can no longer be isolated, he can no longer be ignored. And if the other mainstream parties do that, they will once again be accused of ignoring the very disenfranchised, marginalized people who voted for him in the first place. There's been a huge cris of trust in Dutch politics. He has promised to restore that. And what's really telling is that all of the coalition parties lost votes. This is a huge punishment for the coalition, whereas the populist parties they serve. So not just gear builder's PVB Freedom Party, but also a newly formed new social contract party led by Peter Omzift. He managed to secure, it looks like around 20 seats. And then on the other side of the political spectrum, reflecting a polarized society, we have the Green Left Labor Alliance, led by Franz Timmermans, who gave up a European Commission job to come back and lead this bloc, has also performed well to explain what happens next. If Gert Builders is unsuccessful in forming a new coalition, then the responsibility will fall to the next biggest party, which is looking like the Green Left Labor Alliance.

Thank you very much. Our correspondent in the Hague. There Anna Hollybin.