In tight elections, Prime Minister Xavier Bettel seeks a new term to head Luxembourg

LUXEMBOURG (AP) — Polling stations for Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Luxembourg have closed and officials have started counting results that will determine the fate of the three-party coalition led by Prime Minister Xavier Bettel.

Ten years ago, Bettel succeeded Jean-Claude Juncker, the Christian Democrat who had been Europe’s longest serving democratically elected leader at the time. If Bettel’s liberal DP party and his coalition parties come out the strongest again, Bettel will be in pole position to lead another coalition government for a parliamentary term of five years.

Bettel is now leading a coalition with the Greens and the LSAP Socialists. The CSV Christian Democrats have been left uncharacteristically on the sidelines for the past ten years, despite being the single biggest party. At the last elections, Bettel’s coalition controlled 31 of the 60 seats in the Luxembourg parliament.

Pre-elections surveys indicated that the results will be tight and might allow for several coalition options.

Full results were only expected late Sunday evening. Depending on the results, coalition talks might take anywhere from a few days to several weeks.

Luxembourg is the European Union’s second-smallest country, with a population of 650,000 people, and is its richest per capita.