The liberal-progressive D66 party was on track to become the largest in the Dutch parliament, according to an exit poll, after a snap general election in which Geert Wilders’ far-right Freedom party was was predicted to lose a third of its seats.

The poll, with a one- to two-seat margin of error, gave the centrist party an estimated 27 MPs in the 150-seat assembly, possibly clearing a path for its 38-year-old leader, Rob Jetten, to become the Netherlands’ youngest and first out gay prime minister.

The result, if confirmed, would mark a historic comeback for the almost 60-year-old party, which won just nine seats in the last election in 2023, and a serious setback for Wilders’ anti-immigraton Freedom party (PVV), forecast to slump from 37 MPs to 25.

Jetten’s resolutely optimistic, high-energy campaign struck a chord with Dutch voters disillusioned by two years of a fractious, ineffectual four-party PVV-led conservative coalition government that spent most of its time infighting and achieved little.

D66 supporters cheer the exit poll at a party in Leiden. Photograph: Robin Utrecht/ANP/AFP/Getty Images

“We have today achieved D66’s best ever result,” Jetten told jubilant supporters at the party’s election gathering in Leiden. “Millions of Dutch people have turned a page. They have said goodbye to the politics of negativity, of hate, of ‘It can’t be done.’

“Let’s also turn the page on Wilders and work on a splendid future for our beautiful country … In the coming years, we will do everything we can to show all Dutch people … that politics and the government can be there for them again,” he added.

Even if final results put it in first place, Wilders’ short-lived period in power after the PVV’s shock victory in 2023 seems over for now: all major mainstream parties have ruled out joining a coalition with the anti-immigration firebrand’s party.

The election was triggered by Wilders pulling the PVV out of the government in June, less than a year after it took office, after the partners refused to endorse his radical anti-refugee plans, widely seen as unworkable or illegal or both.

Wilders acknowledged his party was unlikely to be part of the new government, but said his decision to quit was justified. “The voter has spoken. We had hoped for a different outcome but we stuck to our guns,” he posted on social media.

Under the proportional Dutch system, 0.67% of the vote yields one MP, a bar that was cleared by 15 of the 27 parties contesting the election – which included parties for the over-50s, for youth, for animals, for a universal basic income and for sport.

That fragmentation means no single party ever wins a majority, and the country has been governed by coalitions – made up, in its three most recent governments, of four parties – for more than a century. The next government will be no different.

“When it comes to forming a new government in the Netherlands, election results are not the end, they’re the start,” said Rem Korteweg of the Clingendael Institute in The Hague. “The cards have been shuffled. Now the negotiations can begin.”

The centre-left GreenLeft/Labour alliance (GL/PvdA) had a poor night, finishing third with 20 seats – five fewer than in the outgoing parliament and than polls had predicted – prompting the party leader, Frans Timmermans, to step down.

Frans Timmermans makes a resignation speech in Rotterdam. Photograph: Pierre Crom/Getty Images

The veteran former European Commission vice-president said he took “full responsibility” for the result, adding: “It is time for me to take a step back and hand over the leadership of our movement to the next generation.”

But the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDA), who also campaigned on a return to “decent” and “responsible” politics in the Netherlands after the most extreme government in the country’s recent history, nearly quadrupled their seat tally to 19.

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With 76 seats needed to form a governing coalition, one possible scenario could be a broad-based alliance involving D66, CDA, GL/PvdA and the liberal-conservative VVD – the only member of the outgoing government to improve its seat tally, with 23.

That could be hard to negotiate, however, as the VVD opposes a tie-up with the centre-left GL/PvdA. The VVD leader, Dilon Yeşilgöz, has “repeatedly said she wants a rightwing coalition”, noted Armida van Rij of the Centre for European Reform.

An alternative, more rightwing constellation might bring in the radical right JA21, which gained eight seats to finish on nine. Unlike the VVD, all other outgoing coalition members lost heavily, with one, New Social Contract, failing to win any seats at all.

In a campaign dominated by migration, healthcare costs and the Netherlands’ acute housing crisis, Wilders’ PVV had led consistently in the polls until days before the election, when the mainstream centre-left to moderate right parties caught up.

D66 leader Rob Jetten greets the exit poll. Photograph: Hollandse Hoogte/Shutterstock

The far-right leader Wilders had said “democracy would be dead” if the PVV ended up as the largest party and was shut out of government. His opponents said first place did not guarantee government and any coalition with a majority is democratic.

Coalition-building in the Netherlands can take months. After the vote, an informateur tests possible options that could command a majority. Potential partners then negotiate an agreement and must undergo a confidence vote in parliament.

Whatever the future cabinet’s complexion, it will need to act. Despite the campaign’s focus on migration, voters have consistently said the country’s biggest problem is its housing shortage, estimated at about 400,000 homes in a nation of 18 million.

Unless that question – and other pressing issues, including soaring healthcare costs – are properly addressed, analysts warn that the Netherlands’ apparent return to what looks like a more commonsense form of government could prove short-lived.