Caribbean Update No more ex-cons in Surinamese parliament

BY BERT WILKINSON Special

to the AmNews

An interesting political situation is playing out in the Caribbean Community nation of Suriname. The multiracial Dutch-speaking nation of about 600,000 is currently run by a multiparty coalition encompassing the three major race groups—Hindustani-Indians and Surinamese of African-Maroon origins, and those of Javanese descent who won general elections back in mid-2020.

And even though the Hindustani VHP party, with 20 of the 51 seats-representing the largest bloc in parliament, cannot run the country without ABOP—the party of mostly interior Maroons— some of the VHP’s most prominent members are moving to introduce legislation that would effectively block current Vice-President and ABOP Leader Ronnie Brunswijk from being legally eligible to become president or deputy ever again because of his past criminal convictions.

Brunswijk, an extremely wealthy gold miner and timber magnate, has made no secret about his belief that the time has come for a Maroon to run the resource-rich country, since every other group has been represented at the highest level by a president or prime minister.

But The Netherlands, Suriname’s former colonial master, had controversially convicted Brunswijk decades ago of international drug smuggling, so the draft legislation being introduced by senior Hindustani lawmakers and coalition partners to block candidates with a criminal past from being eligible to become president or vice president is expressly aimed at ensuring that Brunswijk never qualifies again. All this is going on despite the fact that if Brunswijk withdraws his eight ABOP seats from the governing coalition, it would collapse and be forced to call fresh elections against a steadily declining currency, rising inflation and the failure of the government to get major projects off the ground.

The VHP move is also aimed at former president and ex-military strongman Desi Bouterse who, along with a group of disgruntled soldiers, staged a bloody 1980 coup to topple the elected government. Like Brunswijk, he was also convicted by the Dutch for alleged international drug smuggling more than two decades ago. Despite having this criminal smear like Brunswijk, Bouterse was able to be twice elected civilian president before losing power to the VHP-led coalition back in 2020. Bouterse is still the de facto opposition leader as his NDP party has 16 seats, the second largest block after the VHP. The draft legislation aims to clear the way for them to be banned from running. Fresh elections are due by May 2025 so the VHP is making its move despite its dependence on ABOP to keep it in power and to maintain good relations with VP Brunswijk.

Brunswijk says he has already acted as head of state several times in the absence of President Chan Santokhi without major incident. “I’m afraid of nothing. No one can exclude me from participating. Now I am president, because I am the acting president,” he told a friendly Maroon audience recently. “What could stop me from running for president tomorrow? They are late, because they should have started this a long time ago,”

Former cabinet director Eugene Van Der San thinks that the VHP’s move is disingenuous. “It is a dangerous proposal. And we know who they are referring to with this change, because with this initiative proposal, both Bouterse and Brunswijk are eliminated,”he said.

For the VHP, it might be easier to deal with Bouterse as he will most likely be convicted by a local court for his alleged role in the late 1982 executions of 15 government opponents, who the then military government had accused of plotting with the west to reverse the 1980 coup. A court hearing the mass murder case has given every indication that it will uphold a 2019, 20year sentence on Bouterse so he might well be out of the electoral frame long before 2025.