The far right PVV emerged as the biggest party in the Dutch general election according to an NOS exit poll with 35 seats in the 150 seat parliament. The support for Geert Wilder’s party – at 23% – is far higher than opinion polls had suggested.

The poll put the GroenLinks/PvdA alliance 26 seats in the 150-seat parliament, with the VVD on 23. All three parties had been neck and neck in the run up to Wednesday’s vote.

Pieter Omtzigt’s new party NSC was fourth in the NOS poll, on 20 seats. Omtzigt had been the most popular candidate for prime minister but support for the party has cooled in recent days.

The poll, based on questioning voters at dozens of polling stations around the country, has a margin of error of one seat, which means anything can happen as the actual results are counted.

In total, 26 parties appeared on the ballot paper, but only those beating the electoral quota will end up with an MP.

This is calculated by dividing the overall number of votes cast by 150. In the last election that was 69,485 – so that a party scoring more votes than that was certain of at least one seat in parliament.

The turnout this year will not be finalised until Thursday at the earliest.