With the results stabilizing, it looks like the broad outline of the election result can now be forecast with a reasonable amount of certainty. The main headlines of tonight are the expected collapse of the LPF, the CDA holding on to the top spot and Labor almost doubling in size. The big shake-up of Dutch politics which Pim Fortuyn had intitiated has more or less petered out. Not much is left of the original impetus that he brought to the political landscape. Still, he does leave something of a legacy in the LPF. And the other big parties too have been marked by the Fortuyn effect as they started to campaign on his themes and his ideas, even if they did not believe in them. But looking back on tonight, the old Dutch political elites can pat themselves on the back on having apparently neutralized the Fortuyn-wrought threat to their pre-eminent roles. It's back to politics as usual for the most part.

The blame for squandering the Fortuyn legacy must fall to a significant degree on the LPF. Their internal disagreements which descended into utter farce destroyed the LPF in the opinion polls. It also gave their coalition partners, the CDA and VVD a good excuse to pull the rug out from under the government and call for new elections. They calculated, or rather miscalculated, that the disaffected LPF voters would turn to the CDA and VVD in any elections, thereby re-establishing something resembling the old order. The VVD especially would have been the natural home for LPF voters based on party platforms. It did not quite happen like that. The protest vote migrated first to the SP and was later absorbed by Labor, whose new leader Wouter Bos has been addressing the Fortuyn issues. According to Dutch TV tonight, about half of those who voted LPF last May have gone over to the VVD and CDA this time around. But about one-third did not even bother to vote. Overall turnout has been slightly higher today than it had been last May.

For the establishment, tonight's result is a success. The foreign body of the LPF has been largely repulsed, although with 9 seats in parliament it will remain a player and might even join the new government again. Even if we get a new CDA-VVD-LPF coalition, the mission for the established parties (CDA and VVD) has been accomplished; the upstart LPF has been reduced in significance. The actual Pim Fortuyn issues have not gone away though. The real test of how well Pim Fortuyn's message has been understood by the old parties will the test of time. If the issues of crime, delapidated health care, deteriorating education and unassimilated immigrants are not solved, the LPF will have another opportunity. Unless they become part of a government that won't or can't solve these problems.