Shortly before the March 17 general election, it was seen as a referendum on the government's handling of the Corona pandemic.

There was an explosion at a north Amsterdam corona virus detection centre just before sunrise that shattered the windows of the building, but caused no injuries, in what police described as a deliberate attack.

Police in the northern Netherlands province said that a team of bomb experts had arrived in the town of Bovenkarshpil, 55 kilometres north of the capital, to examine the explosive device.

Mino Hartenberg, a spokesman for the police, said that remnants of the explosion were found in front of the building in the image of a metal piece 10 square centimeters in size, adding that "the bomb must have been placed" there.

He went on: "Sometimes things like this don't happen coincidentally, they must be arranged." A police statement stated that a security officer at the screening centre had notified the police to hear a "Madhu explosion" that had shattered several windows.