Enmeshed in the travails wrought by the PNC’s naked grab for power by blatantly rigging the March 2 elections, most Guyanese understandably did not pay much attention to the elections held in next-door Suriname on May 25. But even though that government had been headed for the past decade by President Desi Bouterse, who had been convicted of murder the previous year, after some initial hitches, the Elections Commission announced preliminary results within three days and certified them on June 16, with some minor adjustments. Objections were raised on the count in two of the ten regions, but these were settled without any problems.
From the onset of modern politics in Suriname in the 1950s, political parties have been ethnically based with the two major blocs – “Creole” and “Hindustani” (as the Indians were called) forming a coalition that led to the country being labelled as practising “consociational” democracy by the founder of the concept, Arend Lijphart. The Creoles were split into what we called in Guyana “Coloured/Mixed” and African segments to join other major groups – Maroons, who were descended from escaped slaves who had carved out an independent existence in the interior, Amerindians and Javanese (Indonesians) who had also been brought in to work on the sugar plantations after the abolition of slavery in 1863.
The results of the May 25 elections showed that the Indian-based VHP, headed by Chan Santokhi emerged with the largest number of seats – 20 – an increase of 11 in the 51-member Parliament while the incumbent NDP of Bouterse could only muster 16 seats – a drop of 11. ABOP, headed by Ronnie Brunswijk who had led a Maroon rebellion against one of the earlier Governments of Bouterse after the latter’s coup d’état, garnered eight seats, which was an increase of three. Another Maroon-based party BEP earned two seats; the Javanese party PL, two seats and the original Creole party, NPS, three.
As can be discerned, Suriname has a multiplicity of parties (there were 11 others on the hustings) reflecting its multi-ethnic diversity. But unlike Guyana and Trinidad, which share a similar social structure, they have been more open about their ethnic bases and consequently were always open to coalitions since none of the ethnic groups – of which the Indians were the largest – formed an absolute majority. After Bouterse’s coup in 1980, while his party was solidly Creole-based, he defined his government as “national” as opposed to “ethnic”, by recruiting “ethnic” candidates into his party, as well as coalescing with splinter Indian and Javanese parties. In this way, his NDP shared more characteristics with Trinidadian and Guyanese major parties that utilise the same strategy, as well as promoting Creole culture as “national”.
Directly after the preliminary results were announced three days later on May 28, coalition talks were initiated by VHP (Indians) with ABOP (Maroons); NPS (Creole); and PL (Javanese) and on May 30 a coalition was announced, agglomerating their 33 seats. The portfolios of government were agreed upon, with Santokhi designated their Presidential Candidate and Brunswijk as Vice President. In the Surinamese political system, these last two positions are elected by the National Assembly and need a two-thirds supermajority. They were nominated on July 7, and with no other nominations made, the Assembly voted them in by acclamation on July 13. They were sworn in on July 19 in a ceremony that the outgoing President Bouterse attended and participated in.
Apart from the salutary lesson demonstrated by Bouterse in accepting the will of the people and handing over power to his elected successor, Suriname has other lessons for Guyana. Of recent, there have been sustained calls for “shared governance” by partisans of PNC/APNU/AFC, to justify its refusal to vacate office on the back of its blatant attempt to rig the elections.
But while there has been a history of coalition governments in Suriname, their history has demonstrated that there needs to be trust performatively established between the parties.
The PNC has demonstrated it cannot be trusted.
