Dutch PM Mark Rutte announces third-term candidacy

Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced Friday his candidacy to head the Dutch government for a third succesive term in office, as the countdown moves towards next year's parliamentary polls.

"I'm going on. I feel an incredible drive to continue," the Liberal Rutte told popular tabloid De Telegraaf in an exclusive interview.

"Rutte also informed his top party leadership about his ambitions and it has been gladly accepted," the newspaper added in the interview, published on its website.

Rutte's free market-minded People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) with 40 seats has put together a majority with its junior coalition Labour Party (PvdA) partner, commanding 76 seats in the 150-seat lower house of parliament.

Support however for both parties in the coalition has fallen in recent years, notably in favour of far-right politician Geert Wilders, whose Freedom Party (PVV) is leading the polls on an anti-Islam and anti-EU ticket.

The PVV is further backed by its vehement opposition to the influx of refugees from war-torn countries like Syria, which has created Europe's biggest migrant crisis since World War II.

The latest IPSOS political opinion poll suggested that Rutte's party would only gain around 25 seats if elections were held this month, with Labour getting as little as 13 seats.

Wilders's PVV, which vowed Thursday to close mosques and "ban the Koran" in a document outlining its electoral programme ahead of the March 2017 polls, would win 27 seats. It currently has 12 seats in parliament.

Because of its hardline policies however, the PVV "is unlikely to enough parties willing to work with it," IPSOS said.

More likely would be a jumbo coalition between the VVD as senior partner, together with Labour, the progressive D66, the middle-of-the-road Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and the Socialist Party (SP), which would muster 77 seats.

IPSOS poll was based on a sampling of 1,093 eligible voters, out of a voting population of around 12.7 million citizens.

The firebrand populist Wilders had been a parliamentary ally of Rutte's during his first term in government.

Wilders's coalition however collapsed in April 2012 after he walked out of talks on austerity measures, prompting new elections which were held in September that year.