By Thomas Escritt
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Dutch governing coalition is set to receive a drubbing in local elections on Wednesday, which could strain a partnership that has stuck grimly to austerity through a long period of sluggish growth.
Polls show that Labour, the junior partner to the pro-business Liberals, could lose its position as largest party in Amsterdam after 60 years, while in The Hague, the seat of the Dutch government, Labour could be knocked from the top spot by the anti-immigration populist Freedom Party of Geert Wilders.
It could also lose the industrial and maritime powerhouse of Rotterdam to Liveable Rotterdam, a rightist local party.
"This is going to be the most horrible year for the government," said Andre Krouwels, a political scientist at Amsterdam's VU University.
Long seen as a member of the euro zone core, its economy tightly bound to Europe's German economic heartlands, the Netherlands has seen years of sluggish growth since the start of the financial crisis in 2008, lingering in recession even as, further up the Rhine river, Germany's recovery gathered pace.
The country lost one of three coveted triple A sovereign credit ratings in November.
Signs of a gradual economic recovery may have come too late for Labour, whose voters were always more grudging in their support for the coalition's programme of tax hikes and cuts in social spending in particular.
A serious defeat for Labour could fuel dissatisfaction within the party over the course to which it has signed up, though most expect the coalition to weather the storm. National elections must be held before March 2017.
The local polls - being held in more than 400 municipalities - are considered more important than in previous years because key areas of social spending, including the politically sensitive fields of healthcare and benefits, are set to be decentralised, giving municipalities more power than they have ever had before.
A Wilders gain in The Hague would boost his party's morale ahead of European Parliament elections in late May.
According to polls, the Freedom Party, which wants to quit the 28-member EU bloc, will become the largest Dutch party in the Brussels assembly.
Early turn-out was slightly brisker than four years ago, with 11 percent of eligible voters having cast a ballot by mid-morning.
The first indications of the results are expected from around 2000 GMT, when polls close.
Elected in September 2012 on a platform of fiscal rectitude, the governing coalition has seen its popularity melt away as it pushed through successive rounds of cuts in a bid to bring the budget deficit below the EU's 3 percent ceiling.
If a national election were held today, the two parties would win just 35 seats in the 150-member parliament, compared to the 79 they hold now, according to pollster Maurice De Hond, while Wilders' breed of anti-EU populism would make the Freedom Party the largest single party, with 27 seats.
(Reporting by Thomas Escritt; editing by Geert De Clercq and Toby Chopra)
