World News

Suriname’s national assembly votes in Indian-origin President, ends dictatorship

617
Chan Santokhi’s Progressive Reform Party (VHP) won the elections

“Our country is on the brink of financial collapse,” Santokhi told the assembly in a televised victory speech. “The government we form will pursue a coherent policy to work together towards that one goal: the recovery of Suriname.”

Santokhi, of the Progressive Reform Party, won a majority of seats in the assembly in a May national election, ahead of Bouterse whose government oversaw the collapse of the South American nation’s economy despite the recent discovery of vast oil reserves.

Suriname is a former Dutch colony but the country’s relations with the Netherlands, which was once its primary trade partner, deteriorated under Bouterse’s rule.

Bouterse “shifted Suriname’s foreign alliances away from the Netherlands and toward China and nearby Venezuela, whose redistributive economic policies and anti-imperialist rhetoric he copied at home,” the New York Times reported.

Santokhi, the 61-year-old member of the Progressive Reform Party (PRP), will be sworn in as president on 16 July.

The PRP, known in the Dutch language as Vooruitstrevende Hervormingspartij or VHP by its initials, largely represents the Indian community and had originally been called the United Hindustani Party.

Suriname had depended on bauxite exports but recently vast oil reserves have been found in its territorial waters and they could help the country tide over the economic crisis when they eventually come on line.

Till then it may need bailouts from international financial institutions and the Netherlands, whose colony it once was.

Relations with the Netherlands and other western countries had deteriorated under Bouterse, first because of the coup and after his election due to his convictions and his drift to Venezuela and China.

Sanotokhi will have to try to repair relations with the west.

He also faces the strange task of having to deal with Bouterse’s conviction by a Suriname court for the killing of 15 opponents after the 1980 coup in which he overthrew the elected government and seized power.

Sentenced to 20 years, Bouterse had appealed the conviction while he was President. Santokhi had investigated the case while he was with the police.

Suriname’s economy depended on bauxite exports but recent oil finds

Related Articles

Back to top button