AMSTERDAM — In a closely watched election, Dutch voters appeared Wednesday to give Prime Minister Mark Rutte and his center-right Liberal party a narrow victory over the center-left Labor party, which will bring a sigh of relief to European allies anxious about rising euro skepticism in the richer countries of the north. (...)

According to the exit poll by Ipsos Synovate, the Liberals took 41 seats, up from the 31 in the last vote in 2010. Labor won 40 seats, up from 30.

The harder-left Socialist Party, which took a strongly euro-skeptic stance, came third with 15 seats, followed by Geert Wilders’s anti-immigrant Freedom Party, which campaigned for the Dutch to exit the European Union and won 13 seats. But Mr. Wilders’s party lost 11 seats from what it holds in the current Parliament.

Mr. Rutte had to depend on Mr. Wilders’s support in Parliament to preserve the last government, which fell when Mr. Wilders refused to support budget cuts to reach a deficit of 3 percent of gross domestic product, as mandated by the European Union. Mr. Wilders was heavily criticized for irresponsibility in bringing the government down and appeared to have been punished by the voters for it.

The Christian Democrats, which once governed, continued their collapse, losing another 8 seats, leaving them with 13. The pro-Europe centrist D66 Party won 2 more seats, ending up with a total of 12, the poll said. (...)

Anti-Islam groups in America have provided financial support to Dutch politician Geert Wilders, an anti-immigration campaigner who is seeking re-election to the Dutch parliament this week.

While this is not illegal in the Netherlands, it sheds light on the international connections of Wilders, whose Freedom Party is the least transparent Dutch parliamentary group and a rallying point for Europe's far right.

Wilders' party is self-funded, unlike other Dutch parties that are subsidized by the government. It does not, therefore, have to meet the same disclosure requirements.

Groups in America seeking to counter Islamic influence in the West say they funded police protection and paid legal costs for Wilders whose party is polling in fourth place before the Sept 12 election.

Wilders' ideas - calling for a halt to non-Western immigration and bans on Muslim headscarfs and the construction of mosques - have struck a chord in mainstream politics beyond the Netherlands. France banned clothing that covers the face in April 2011 and Belgium followed suit in July of the same year. Switzerland barred the construction of new minarets following a referendum in 2009.

The Middle East Forum, a pro-Israeli think tank based in Philadelphia, funded Wilders' legal defense in 2010 and 2011 against Dutch charges of inciting racial hatred, its director Daniel Pipes said.

The Middle East Forum has a stated goal, according to its website, of protecting the "freedom of public speech of anti-Islamist authors, promoting American interests in the Middle East and protecting the constitutional order from Middle Eastern threats". It sent money directly to Wilders' lawyer via its Legal Project, Pipes said.

Represented by Dutch criminal lawyer Bram Moscowitz, Wilders successfully defended himself against the charges, which were brought by prosecutors in Amsterdam on behalf of groups representing minorities from Turkey, Morocco and other countries with Muslim populations.

The case heard in October 2010 was filed in response to Wilders' comments in the Dutch media about Muslims and his film "Fitna", which interlays images of terrorist attacks with quotations from the Koran and prompted protests by Muslims in Islamic countries worldwide. The court found he had stayed within the limits of free speech.

Pipes declined to say how much his group paid for Wilders' defense.

Moscowitz declined to discuss payments for Wilders' defense, citing client confidentiality.

Wilders said in an emailed statement that his legal expenses were paid for with the help of voluntary donations from defenders of freedom of speech.

"I do not answer questions of who they are and what they have paid. This could jeopardize their safety," Wilders said. (...)

FEW nations beat the Dutch for practicality. Befuddled voters, who have 20 or so parties to choose from in the general election on September 12th, can save hours of poring over manifestos by submitting to the StemWijzer. This government-backed website presents 30 pithy statements (“All ‘coffee-shops’ in the Netherlands should be closed down”; “European supervision of banks should be implemented”), and matches voters to the party that best fits their views. Separately, the Central Planning Bureau also runs the main parties’ programmes through an economic model, to compare how each will affect things like jobs, output and, miraculously, queues on motorways.

Despite these aids, the Dutch are disenchanted with politics. At J.H. Van Dijk’s cheese stall in Amsterdam’s main street market customers are fed up with all those politicians and their confusing parties. Further into town, at the Independent Outlet music store (where “corporate rock still sucks”), a young man behind the counter complains how “politicians always let you down”. A hairdresser in The Hague, who in her time has shorn plenty of MPs, cannot make up her mind. The StemWijzer is all very well, she says, but politicians “don’t do what the people vote for.”

Dutch discontent dates back to well before the euro crisis. But complex coalition politics makes the Netherlands a test bed for a question that today concerns the entire euro zone. As leaders strive to save Europe’s currency and integrate its politics, is the crisis galvanising voters and politicians, or is it driving them apart? (...)

We have found these to be about the best maps for cycle touring in Holland. They come in an A5 sized 'ziploc' plastic wallet which contains an A5 size booklet with route descriptions and general information (unfortunately only in Dutch) and 20 loose A3 size maps folded in quarters, which fit nicely int an Ortlieb map case. Although the maps are slightly larger in scale to the ANWB maps they do have a wealth of information on them for the cyclist. Details include LF routes with numbers, tour junctions and variants, cycle paths, ANWB 'Paddestoel' numbers, campsites and the usual tourist information.

They come in 2 packs one to cover the North of Holland and one to cover the South of Holland, although you can buy all the North and South maps in one pack which is slightly cheaper. They can be purchased from most ANWB shops and some of the VVV offices.