The National Democratic Party (NDP), the former party of Desi Bouterse, has a slight lead in the Surinamese presidential elections with 90 percent of the votes counted. The competing party of President Chan Santokhi is one seat behind.
The elections have resulted in a neck-and-neck race between the two most popular parties in the country. The NDP has eighteen seats and Santokhi’s Progressive Reform Party (VHP) has seventeen. There are 51 seats in the National Assembly, the Surinamese parliament.
If NDP leader Jennifer Simons wins, that does not guarantee the presidency. The president and vice president are elected by a two-thirds majority by the new parliament. So you are dependent on other parties. The NDP will not cooperate with the VHP, Simons said on Sunday.
If the vote comes to nothing, the United People’s Assembly may choose who the new leaders will be. That meeting consists of hundreds of national and regional representatives. An ordinary majority is required.
Santokhi does lead the list with the most preference votes. He has about five thousand more than Simons. Ingrid Bouterse, the widow of former president Bouterse, is eighth on the list. A remarkably good score, because she is listed as a list pusher at position 51 of the NDP.
Counting votes delayed
There may still be a slight shift in the outcome: the turnout figures and results from 43 of the 673 polling stations have not yet been received. The counting of votes was delayed due to technical problems with the digital processing.
The NDP is participating for the first time without its founder Desi Bouterse. The 71-year-old Simons succeeded him last year after Bouterse went into hiding after his conviction for the December murders. Bouterse died in December. The new party leader mainly does not want to look back too much at her predecessor.
In the article below you can read what is at stake in these elections, such as billions in oil revenues.