Local parties win in 2018 Dutch local elections

People voted for the municipal councils in the Netherlands for the next four years on Wednesday.

The Christian Democratics (CDA) and local parties won the most votes, while GreenLeft won in Amsterdam and far-right parties Leefbaar Rotterdam and Mos Group won in Rotterdam and the Hague.

Voting began at 7:30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) and continued till 9:00 p.m. (2000GMT). The official results are scheduled to be announced on Friday.

Nearly 12.5 million registered voters cast their ballots in the elections held in 335 municipalities.

Housing, integration and jobs are considered as the three key issues of the election which coincides with the Intelligence and Security Services Act referendum.

Hundreds of Turkish candidates competed in the election as nearly 300,000 Turks were eligible to vote.

The DENK (Think) Party -- formed by ethnic Turkish lawmakers Tunahan Kuzu and Selcuk Ozturk in 2015 after their expulsion from the Labor Party -- also ran in the elections.

DENK joined with a total of 24 members of parliament in 13 municipalities.

The party had participated for the first time in last year's general election and managed to secure three seats.