Liberal leader Mark Rutte, who now seems set to be the next Dutch prime minister, said towards the end of the campaign he wanted a new coalition in place by July 1. Perhaps he was inspired by the ease with which Britain seemed to form its first coalition government in just a few days, writes Robin Pascoe.

The reality is, putting together the stable government the Netherlands needs out of this fragmented political landscape is going to be a tricky job.
Firstly, what does he do about the PVV? Wilders was triumphant on Wednesday night and said the party is ready to join a government. But Rutte made it quite clear he believes in tough economic reform and has accused Wilders of being left-wing on the economy.
And even if they could compromise on the finances, is the VVD prepared to link itself to a party that wants to ban the Koran and charge Muslim women an extra tax to wear a headscarf?
Propping up
Then again, forming a right-wing government with the PVV will also require the backing of the CDA, which has just been given a massive hangover by voters. With support almost halved, will the CDA feel it has any right to prop up a government involving Wilders – just to cling on to power?
After all, even though PVV support has soared, it still only has the support of 16% of voters. Labour, with 20%, might have lost three seats, but it is still the second biggest party in the country and has more claim on being number two in a coalition than the PVV.
But throughout the campaign, Rutte emphasised the ‘yawning divide’ between the VVD and Labour – ‘historically wide’, he called it.
So what does he do now? Mark Rutte took the VVD to victory but that was the easy bit. Now he has some very tricky negotiations to go through to turn that victory into a premiership. A July 1 deadline seems very far away.