Suriname and the Limits of Consociationalism

Chaitram Singh
Department of Government & International Studies
Berry College









The author wishes to acknowledge with gratitude the extensive research assistance provided by
Maureen Morgan, Senior Librarian, Memorial Library, Berry College.
1

In the May 2010 legislative elections in Suriname, the ruling New Front (NF) coalition
was routed by the National Democratic Party (NDP), in an alliance with smaller parties. The
election results caught international attention because the immediate consequence was that NDP
leader Desi Bouterse, the former military commander, who had overthrown the elected
government in 1980 and governed Suriname from 1980-1987 and again from 1990-1991,
became the countrys new president.
1
A man, who had been convicted in the Netherlands of
drug smuggling and sentenced in absentia for eleven years and who was being investigated for
complicity in the execution of fifteen people in December 1982, was now the Surinamese head
of state. Not surprisingly, the National Assembly, shortly after the elections, pardoned Bouterse
and his other former associates for crimes committed in defense of the state.
However, the election results also bore enormous significance within Suriname itself
because of what they appeared to say of the voting behavior of Surinamese who, until 2010, were
assumed to adhere to the historical pattern of racial voting. In fact, the New Front coalition had
been formed to prevent Desi Bouterse and the military from re-attaining control over the levers
of state power, and the underlying assumption was that, as a coalition of the major race-based
parties in Suriname, the coalition would be unbeatable and could also prove to Surinamese that
the leaders of the major ethnic groupings could collaborate to promote the greater good of the
country; namely, continued parliamentary democracy, racial amity, and economic prosperity.
The New Front coalition was a close approximation of a grand coalition government
proposed by Arend Lijphart for societies with fragmented political cultures. It was a
government by elite cartel and, mindful of the divisiveness of politics in the 1970s, its leaders
embarked on what Lijphart would call a deliberate joint effort by elites to stabilize the system.
2

2

It was assumed that the New Fronts partners would be able to maintain cohesion in their
respective racial groups and the New Front would govern indefinitely. The ignominious defeat
of the New Front in 2010 thus raised questions not only about the voting behavior of Surinamese
but also about the Lijphart model as an enduring formula for governing ethnically segmented
societies, and it is the purpose of this paper to examine the causes of the New Front defeat and
the limitations of the consociational democracy advocated by Arend Lijphart.
Consociational Democracy
Arend Lijphart, in his seminal World Politics article, Consociational Democracy,
proposed a subtype of democracy by that name, encompassing institutional arrangements for
governing culturally fragmented societies. A government by a cartel of elites would not only
enshrine the majoritarian principle of electoral democracy but would also serve to defuse the
potential for confrontation among the extant subcultures. Abstracting from the experiences of
Belgium and the Netherlands, Lijphart identified four central elements of a consociational
democracy. The first is a grand coalition of leaders of the major subcultures of the society. The
second element is decision-making by consensus, which, in effect, vests representatives of each
subculture with a veto over decisions, assuring them that their will could not be subverted and
thereby compelling efforts to arrive at compromises. Third, within the cabinet and the civil
bureaucracy, proportionality would be the principle followed in hiring from the different
subcultures and in the expenditures of public funds for education and other public goods.
Finally, each subculture, where appropriate, would be guaranteed autonomy in handling of
cultural matters, such as marriage and divorce, and religious practices.
3
3

Critics, while not completely dismissing the utility of the model Lijphart advanced,
pointed out definitional problems. What, according to Jurg Steiner, is the difference between
cultural diversity and subcultural segmentation? Without any such delineation, it is impossible
to determine in any reasonably clear way to what universe of cases the consociational theory
applies.
4
Further, Lijphart abstracted the central elements of his model from the cases of the
Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland, and Steiner appropriately asks whether any of those
countries could in 1981, much less today, be regarded as culturally segmented.
5
That said, it is
not difficult to identify developing societies in which the ethnic lines have been so rigidly drawn
as to qualify as culturally segmented, and, in considering these, Lijpharts model could serve as a
normative framework for providing stable government.
One obvious drawback of this model is the possibility of deadlock in decision-making.
In addressing this, Lijphart argued that the real and imminent possibility of communal violence
would serve as a disincentive to intransigence leading to deadlock. However, this seems more
like a hope than an iron law, as the 1974 breakdown of consociationalism in Lebanon showed.
A second issue bearing on the longevity of this form of democracy rests on the
assumption that the members of the various subcultures will walk in lock-step with those
representing them and that they would demonstrate an enduring cohesiveness, based on the
paramountcy of cultural and other communal concerns. Might this cohesiveness not fragment if
fissures arise within the leadership of one or more of subcultures? Also, might not short-term
success of a consociational framework render increasingly remote the possibility of communal
confrontation or, at a minimum, lessen the fear of such a possibility and, in either case, erode the
presumed monolithic parochialism of cultural subgroups? Were either or both of these situations
4

to occur, might not people within the different subcultures become more open to other types of
political appeals? Evidence of any of these situations would manifest itself in decreased
electoral support for the traditional representatives of their respective subcultures, and this is one
of the issues this paper will examine in the case of Suriname.
The First Consociational Coalition in Suriname
As a colony, Suriname attained self-rule in 1954 initiating what was essentially an
apprenticeship in self-government, under Dutch oversight, and generally viewed as a necessary
preparation for complete independence from the Netherlands. During this preindependence
period, no political party was able to secure a majority and field a government by itself; thus,
coalition building ensued. Except for the 1958-67 period, none of these coalitions could be
described as consociational in the Lijphart sense of being grand coalitions representing the
different ethnic segments of Surinamese society. Thus, Edward Dews use of the term
consociational to describe those coalitions is grossly misleading.
6
Use of the term,
consociational, to describe general coalition-building would render the concept devoid of any
theoretical import.
Certainly up to the 1980 military coup, the Suriname National Party (NPS), the
Hindustani Progressive Party (VHP), and the Indonesian Peasant Party (KTPI), represented the
Creoles, the Hindustanis, and the Javanese respectively. Because Creoles and the Hindustanis
were, and continue to be, Surinames major ethnic groups and, because of the pattern of racial
voting, the 1956-67 coalition between the NPS and the VHP could be said to approximate
Lijpharts grand coalition. It was inspired by two considerations. The first was simply the
5

arithmetic of getting a legislative majority to run the government. The second was a reaction to
developments in neighboring Guyana, where racial confrontation between Afro-Guyanese
(Creoles) and Indo-Guyanese (Hindustanis) had resulted in loss of life, property damage, and
some internal migration.
7
Dubbed the verbroedering (fraternal) coalition, the NPS-VHP
partnership not only controlled the government but also contributed to an atmosphere of amity
between Surinames Creole and Hindustani peoples.
To maintain the support of their respective racial segments, however, the NSP-VHP
coalition dispensed patronage in the form of jobs in civil bureaucracy. The Dutch government,
which still retained oversight over the affairs of its colony, eventually objected to the super-
inflation of the governmental bureaucracy. With limitations placed on their ability to use the
government to dispense patronage, the verbroedering coalition came to an end as both the NPS
and the VHP sought smaller coalition partners to reduce their obligations when they achieved
control over the machinery of government.
8
Nevertheless, to the extent that the verbroedering
coalition between the NPS and the VHP averted ethnic confrontation between Surinames major
ethnic groups, the coalition could be said to have satisfied a central goal of Lijpharts grand
coalition, and Suriname could be said to have been practicing consociational democracy.
While the two major parties sniped at each other in the immediate pre- and post-
independence years, the prospect of a major outbreak of ethnic violence seemed remote. Then,
the military took power and unwittingly reshuffled the political deck. First, the military incurred
the ire of Creoles because they removed a Creole-dominated government. Second, apart from
the fact that there were VHP sympathizers among the fifteen who were executed by the military
on December 8, 1982, coup leader Desi Bouterse maintained cordial relations with the VHP
6

leadership and, VHP leader Jaggernath Lachmon did not openly criticize the military. Not only
this, but Bouterse did not persecute the Hindustanis. Thus, after the parliamentary democracy
was fully restored in 1991, Bouterse enjoyed a significant amount of goodwill among
Hindustanis, especially in the countryside. To the extent that the Bouterse-led government
persecuted any ethnic group in Suriname, it was the Maroon community, and this was during the
insurgency mounted by the Ronnie Brunswijk and the Jungle Commandos. The militarys
efforts to repress the Maroon uprising led to the killing of many Maroon women and children
and the flight of approximately 10,000 Maroons to neighboring French Guiana.
9
By 1987, the Bouterse-led government, by the totality of its actions and policies, became
isolated from Surinames civil society. A state of emergency and dusk-to-dawn curfews
impacted all Surinamese, as did the economic hardships, themselves a consequence of a cut-off
of generous Dutch Government aid, falling alumina prices, and a drying up of foreign loans and
grants. Price controls created shortages, and all Surinamese groaned under these privations.
The Conditioning Effect of the 1980 Coup
The 1980 coup was a watershed event in the political history of Suriname, and the
military government it midwifed has had a conditioning effect on political development during
its rule and since it ended. As such, it warrants a revisiting and a re-examination to bring into
sharp relief those aspects that are relevant to the issue of consociationalism.
The causes of the coup and its immediate aftermath have been thoroughly presented
elsewhere.
10
It would not be inaccurate to say that the coup was precipitated by the ineptness of
the government of Henck Arron in responding to grievances of the armys Non-Commissioned
7

Officers (NCOs) in regard to pay, deployments, and the formation of a union. The humiliation
inflicted on the NCOs by the governments use of armed civil police to evict them from their
barracks and to put some of their leaders on trial was the last straw. However, it is also true that
the NCOs wanted a more active role for the military in national development and objected to
ethnic nature of politics in Suriname, which had not only spawned corruption but also paralysis
in policy-making, as rowdyism in the Staten (Parliament) transfigured its stateliness into a
circus stupid.
11
Put differently, there were no ethnic confrontations in the streets of
Paramaribo but, within the Staten, the incessant skirmishing by the VHP and the NPS amounted
to ethnic confrontation by other means and redounded to the disbenefit of the entire country.
Two different lessons were learned by coup leader Desi Bouterse, on the one hand, and
by the leaders of the VHP and the NPS on the other. Bouterse had regarded the legislature as an
effete and ineffectual body and decided to govern Suriname by establishing military overlordship
over the policy-making apparatus. This approach eventually failed. The leaders of the VHP, the
NPS, and the KTPI recognized the absolute necessity to cooperate in order to restore
parliamentary democracy and, subsequent to its restoration, to collaborate in administering the
affairs of the country, and this gave birth to the second verbroedering coalition.
All of the actions Bouterse took following the coup were motivated as Peter Meel
observed, by his anxiety to maintain power.
12
After he had put down several coup attempts
and established his preeminence in the military, Bouterse dispensed with the constitution and the
legislature, and restructured the government. The central policy-making body would be the
Policy Center (Beleidcentrum), a six-man politburo, which he headed. The implementation of
the policies would be the task of the Council of Ministers, led by a prime minister appointed by
8

Bouterse. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was to serve as the ceremonial President. To
legitimize his actions and to prolong his stay in power, Bouterse presented the entire enterprise
as a revolutie and erected a monument to the revolution on the ruins of the Politieburo on the
Waterkant.
The fortunes of this military regime changed dramatically following the December 8,
1982 execution of 15 political opponents, who were in military custody at Fort Zeelandia. Two
days later, the Dutch government cut off all aid to the regime. The impact of this on pushing the
regime back to parliamentary democracy cannot be overstated. The Dutch independence gift
package of 1.96 billion U.S. dollars is, without question, the most generous grant ever given by a
departing colonial power to its former colony. The aid cut-off, compounded with disruptions in
various sectors of the economy from strikes and demonstrations, and massive outmigration from
the country, pushed the economy into steady decline. Bouterse struggled to have the Dutch
government reverse its position on the aid, but the Dutch government conditioned any
resumption of aid on the restoration of parliamentary democracy.
Contemporaneously, Bouterse was in touch with the leaders of opposition parties seeking
to enlist their participation in governing arrangements he had fashioned. However, the leaders of
the VHP, the NPS, and the KTPI insisted on assurance of the restoration of parliamentary
democracy before they would cooperate. With non-cooperation at a domestic level and Dutch
financial squeeze from overseas, Bouterse in 1985 appointed a constitutional commission with a
mandate to produce a new constitution by March 1987. The outbreak of a Maroon insurgency in
Eastern Suriname in 1987 added greater urgency to the process.
13
9

The bitter taste of authoritarian rule, including the various manifestations of military
brutality, forced cooperation among the three major parties, all of which had previously drawn
their support from the major ethnic segments of Surinamese society. Thus was born the second
verbroedering coalition, which contested the November 1987 elections under the new
constitution as the Front of Democracy and Development and won 40 of the 51 seats in the
National Assembly. The coalition chose Ramsewak Shankar of the VHP President and Henck
Arron as Vice-President. Unfortunately, the constitution had assigned a guardianship role to the
Military Command (de Militaire Gezag), and on Christmas Eve 1990, this government was
pushed aside by the military in a whimsical display of power by Commander Bouterse and his
lieutenants.
14
Condemned by foreign governments and the OAS and, under threat of foreign
intervention by the US and the Netherlands, Bouterse and his associates allowed new elections
on May 25, 1991. The VHP, NPS, and KTPI regrouped as the New Front and won 30 of the 51
legislative seats and again reformed the government with NPS Ronald Venetiaan as President.
The loss of 10 seats from the previous election was generally seen as punishment by the
electorate to the New Front for not acting more forcefully against the military during their first
term. It should be pointed out here that Bouterses National Democratic Party won 12 seats,
largely because of the massive patronage dispersed during the military rule from 1990 to 1991.
Nevertheless, the 12 seats made the NDP Surinames primary opposition party and gave
Bouterse staying power on the political scene.
Then, in 2010, the Mega Combination Bouterse fielded in the May elections defeated all
comers. The May 2010 legislative elections were monitored by the Organization of American
10

States and, in spite of rain, the turn-out of 75.4 percent was the highest since 1987.
15
As Table
1B shows, Bouterse Mega Combination routed the New Front coalition, winning 23 out the 51
legislative seats to the New Fronts fourteen. It was the Fronts poorest showing ever.
Discussions with some within the VHP suggest a sense within the party of betrayal by the
Hindustanis they counted on, and, no doubt, its coalition partner, the NPS, has been experiencing
similar feelings about its traditional Creole support. So, why did the New Front coalition suffer
such a devastating loss at the hands of a fugitive from the Dutch justice system?
Its the Economy, Stupid!
In elaborating the consociational democracy model, Arend Lijphart states that keeping
the different subcultural groupings away from one another is conducive to consociational
democracy and political stability. The explanation is that subcultures with widely different
outlooks and interests may coexist without necessarily being in contact; conflict arises only when
they are in contact with each other.
16
There are several problems with this assertion. First, it
ignores the reality that the very nature of modern society amplifies the range of interactions
among individuals and groups. Domestic commerce, for instance, creates interactions and
strands of interdependence and breaks down cultural barriers. Second, it assumes that conflict is
the only outcome of these inter-cultural interactions, ignoring the real possibility of increased
understanding and appreciation of people from the different subcultures of the benefits that
might accrue. Indeed, this is a fundamental basis of international trade among countries
representing diverse cultures, as Robert Wrights delightful essay, My Minivan and World
Peace, makes clear.
17
Finally, the Lijphart model assumes that cultural concerns are, if not the
only concern of the separate segments of society, certainly the paramount ones, and it greatly
11

underestimates the probability of common interests arising among the different subcultural
groups, and ignores the real possibility of coalescence around some of those interests. One such
nationalizing interest is concern over the economy.
A review of the Surinamese economy, done by the University of Amsterdams Centre for
Latin American Research and Documentation (CEDLA), points out a central feature of the
Surinamese economy, which is that it has always been dependent on a highly specialized export
sector dominated by only one or two commodities.
18
Toward the end of the 20
th
century,
bauxite dominated the economy but, more recently, gold mining and oil production have added
to the commodity list. The export of these commodities and the necessity to import factors of
production have integrated Suriname into the international capitalist system and made it
vulnerable to the vagaries of the world market. Fluctuating commodity prices have consigned
Suriname to boom and bust cycles. A booming alumina sector can be a mixed blessing. On the
one hand, the government enjoys increased revenues; wages in the mining and public sectors
increase; and the local currency appreciates in value owing to the inflow of hard currency. On
the other hand, the strengthening of the currency increases Surinamese capacity to import
consumption items, a capacity which is not sustainable in the bust cycles and the ensuing
recessions, and can lead to current account deficits. Also, on the assumption that the good times
will roll, the government might make greater structural commitments which they are unable to
reduce when the boom ends and, thereby, incur huge budget deficits.
19

In addition, the Surinamese economy, according to an IMF study, has been plagued by
high inflation. Inflation accelerated in the early 1990s after the end of military rule, reaching its
highest level in 1994 (See Table 2A). The military had been able to keep inflation at bay by
12

price controls and heavy penalties for violations. However, shortages and reduced consumption
resulted in what economists call a monetary overhang. Thus, when the newly elected New
Front government took power in 1991 and the price control system collapsed, pent-up demand
was unleashed.
20
Inflation increased rapidly, eroding the spending power of Surinamese and the
staying power of the New Front government, which lost its majority in the 1996 legislative
elections. Increasingly, the Surinamese electorate began to hold the coalitions in government
responsible for not better managing the economy.
Not surprisingly, the 1996 elections were fought on economic issues, and the New Front
failed to win a majority of the seats in the National Assembly. The KTPI subsequently left the
New Front and joined a coalition Bouterse erected around the NDP. That coalition was also
joined by the Renewed Progressive Party (HPP) and the Basis Party for Renewal and Democracy
(BVP), a splinter from the VHP, and successfully elected Jules Wijdenbosch of the NDP as
President. However, the coalition government suffered a similar fate as its predecessor. The
government incurred large budget deficits in 1997 and 1998, and inflation rose to 19 percent in
1998, spawning strikes that year. In 1999, the government devalued the currency, and inflation
rose as high as 150 percent.
21
A national strike brought the entire country to a standstill. The
entire cabinet resigned and, faced with strenuous opposition in the National Assembly, President
Wijdenbosch called for early election in 2000.
22

Tables 1A and 1B show the seats won by party/coalition in each of the elections since
1987. The two tables are offered instead of a composite because in the first three elections, the
New Front coalition was opposed by single parties. As of the 2000 elections, the New Front was
opposed by a few coalitions, the most powerful being Bouterse Mega Combination. An
13

examination of the results of the legislative elections since 1991 shows that the coalition in
control of the government lost seats in the National Assembly in the legislative elections at the
end of that term. This is noteworthy, especially in the case of the New Front, which attempted to
present itself as the party representing the major ethnic groupings of Suriname. Clearly, that
type of racial support was proving not to be monolithic.
Table 1A. Legislative Elections in Suriname, 1987-1996
Party/Alliance 1987 1991 1996
New Front 40 30 24
National
Demographic Party
(NDP)
3 12 16
Democratic
Alternative 91
9 14
Peneawa Lima 4 0 4
Progressive
Development Alliance
3
Progressive Laborers
and Peasants Union
(PALU)
3
Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union www.ipu.org/parline/reports2299_arc.htm. Accessed June
24, 2013.

In preparation for the 2000 elections, the NPS and the VHP attempted to re-create their
consociational coalition by bringing in another Javanese party, Pentajah Luhur, led by Paul
Somohardjo. With the addition of the small Surinamese Labor Party, the New Front won 30 of
the 51 seats in the National Assembly and formed a new government. Ronald Venetiaan of the
NPS again became the President, with Jules Rattankoemar Adjodhia of the VHP as the Vice-
President. Bouterse NDP, which had contested the election as a coalition called Millenium
Combination (later renamed Mega Combination), lost 6 seats from its 1996 tally.
23
It was quite
14

clear that the New Front had benefitted from the poor economic performance of the NDP
coalition government.
Table 1B. Legislative Elections in Suriname, 2000-2010
2000 2000 2005 2005 2010 2010
Party/Coalition % Vote Seats % Vote Seats % Vote Seats
New Front 47.30 32 15.10 23 3.65 14
Mega Combination 15.10 10 29.40 15 40.52 23
Democratic National
Platform 2000
10.0 3 n.a.
Democratic
Alternative 91
6.10 2 n.a.
Peoples Alliance for
Progress
n.a. 9.8 5 12.98 6
A Combination 9.8 5 4.7 1
Alternative-1 5.9 3
Others n.a. 4 4.09 1
Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union, Historical Archive, Suriname (Elections Held in 2000,
Elections Held in 2005, Last Elections) www.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/arcc/2299_11.htm
Accessed June 24, 2013.
OAS, Report of the OAS Electoral Observation Mission in Suriname Parliamentary and
Presidential Elections 2005
OAS, Final Report of the OAS Electoral Observation Mission For the General Elections in the
Republic of Suriname on May 25, 2010
The 2000-2005 term of the New Front government was dominated by news about the
legal case against Bouterse for the murder of 15 Surinamers in December 1982 when Bouterse
headed the military-dominated government. In November 2000, the Surinamese Court of Justice
ruled that Bouterse should stand trial for those murders. After four years of investigation, which
included the exhumation of the remains of the victims and assistance by Dutch forensic experts,
Bouterse and 25 others were indicted for the murders. In 2005, the Inter-American Court of
Human Rights of the OAS instructed the government of Suriname to investigate the 1986
15

massacre at Moiwana, which also occurred during Bouterse military rule, and to pay
compensation to survivors.
24
While all of this was necessary and, no doubt, provided good theater, they did not detract
from the governments economic performance, which was far from stellar. Tables 2A and 2B
show the annual inflation rates for Suriname over the period 1990 to 2010. Inflation did come
down from the 98.7 percent level in 1999 but remained high for most of the New Fronts
Table 2A. Annual Inflation Rates, 1992-2000
Year 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
Inflation,
average
consumer
prices
43.666 143.511 368.479 235.531 -0.794 7.252 19.066 98.724 58.608
Source: IMF, World Economic Outlook, EconStats: Suriname
http://econstats.com/weo/CSUR.htm Accessed June 12, 2013

Table 2B. Annual Inflation Rates, 2001-2010
Year 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Inflation,
average
consumer
prices
39.786 15.516 23.001 9.126 9.925 11.307 6.432 14.637 -0.142 6.945
Source: Source: IMF, World Economic Outlook, EconStats: Suriname
http://econstats.com/weo/CSUR.htm. Accessed June 12, 2013

16

term in office. In the 2005 elections, not only did the New Front fail to win a majority in the
National Assembly, it achieved its lowest seat count to date, recording a loss of 9 seats since the
2000 elections. Bouterse Mega Combination coalition, on the other hand, gained 5 seats. Race
as the primary determinant of part identification was simply not working for the New Front;
economic performance seemed to matter also to Surinamers across the racial spectrum. In
hindsight, the 2005 elections were portentous of the disaster the New Front would experience in
the 2010 legislative elections. The New Front was able to form a government after some horse-
trading with smaller parties, including Ronnie Brunswijks A Combination, but the fact remains
that, notwithstanding its appearance as the party representing Creoles, Hindustanis, and
Javanese, the New Front was unable to persuade those racial groupings to vote en bloc for the
coalition. Surinamers were becoming more sophisticated in their voting if, by sophisticated, one
means voting for interests beyond race. The 2010 elections would validate this proposition
convincingly.
During the 2005-10 New Front term in office, the countrys attention was refocused on
Desi Bouterse. In 2007, Bouterse apologized to the families of the December 1982 murder
victims and asked for amnesty for the suspects. However, in February 2009, legal proceedings
began against him and 23 others. Yet, just one year later, Bouterse Mega Combination coalition
swept the New Front out of the government by winning a plurality of 23 seats to the New Fronts
14 of the 51 National Assembly seats and by putting together a legislative majority which elected
him to Surinames highest office. Why?

17

How the Fox Entered the Hen House
As in previous elections, poor economic performance eroded popular support for the New
Front in 2010. Inflation continued at a high annual rate through 2008. Transportation prices
rose, owing to the increase in the price of petroleum, and spawned civil unrest between 2005 and
2008. In late 2007 and early 2008, one thousand teachers were on strike for higher wages.
25

Monthly inflation figures, published by Caricom, show that while inflation fell in 2009, it began
climbing again as the 2010 elections approached. Prices for food and transportation were rising
at a steady clip, and the New Front paid dearly for rising inflation in the elections. Nevertheless,
the economy alone does not explain the drubbing the New Front took nor the dramatic rise of
Bouterse Mega Combination. Other factors clearly played a role in the virtual collapse of the
verbroedering coalition.
First, the New Front has suffered from an ossified leadership structure, which showed the
same set of old faces that had been kicking around since the first verbroedering of Jaggernath
Lachmon and Johann Adolf Pengel. At the time of the 2010 elections, the outgoing National
Front President Ronald Venetiaan was 74 years old. He had served as president for 15 years,
longer than the dictator, Papa Doc, in Haiti, even though Venetiaan had been elected in free and
fair elections. In the run-up to the elections, Venetiaan declared that he would not present
himself as a candidate for the presidency, but the heir apparent was Ramdien Sardjoe, who was
even older. In contrast, the Mega Combination fielded Desi Bouterse, a decade younger, and an
ebullient and charismatic figure.
18

New Front partner Pertajah Luhur offered a younger alternative as the Fronts
presidential candidate, their party leader: Paul Somohardjo. However, when Somohardjo did not
get the nod, he pulled his party out of the coalition, leaving the NPS and the VHP scrambling to
put together a viable coalition.
26
The New Front eventually chose Justice Minister
Chandrikapersad Santokhi as the coalitions standard bearer. However, Santokhi did not have
the same political stature of Venetiaan or Sardjoe. As Justice Minister, he had led the charge to
prosecute Bouterse, and Bouterse now used that to play the victim before the electorate by telling
them that Santokhi was out to kill him and was only too willing to do the bidding of the Dutch
government.
Bouterse also benefitted from the demographic profile of the 2010 electorate, 60 percent
of which were too young to remember the years when the military governed.
27
None of the
eighteen or nineteen year-olds voting in the 2010 elections had been born when Bouterse was
finally ousted as the Bevelhebber and those, between 18 and 28, had not been born when the
1982 killings took place at Fort Zeelandia. The point here is that these cohorts did not have the
same visceral reaction to Bouterse as older Surinamese, many of whom had died or migrated to
the Netherlands. It is possible too that, in regard to Bouterse, many Surinamers appear prepared
to let bygones be bygones. 1982 was a long time ago. Bouterse had participated in every
election since 1987, establishing his bona fides as an experienced politician in Suriname.
However, even among older Hindustanis, Bouterse has always enjoyed some measure of
goodwill. The fact is that during the period of military overlordship, 1980-1987, Bouterse
engaged in no type of persecution of Hindustanis. In fact, shortly after the military takeover in
February 1980, Bouterse was involved in backdoor talks with VHP leaders. According to former
19

President Ramsewal Shankar, VHP leader Jagernath Lachmon never criticized Bouterse openly,
and Bouterse was always respectful in his dealings with Lachmon. In addition, Bouterse had
been consciously courting Hindustanis. He developed a very cozy relationship with Hindustani
businessmen, many of whom prospered during the NDP-led coalition from 1996 to 2000. In that
coalition government, Bouterse chose VHP businessman, Prataapnarain Radhakishum as Vice
President. In the 2000 and 2005 elections, Bouterse chose prominent Hindustanis as his
coalitions presidential candidate. In both of these cases, the candidates were long shots, but it
was the symbolism that mattered, and it paid off handsomely in the 2010 legislative elections
when Bouterse Mega Combination pulled away large numbers of Hindustanis from the VHP.
Table 3 shows the results of the legislative elections by districts. In 2010, Desi
Bouterse Mega Combination won a greater percentage than the New Front in each of the ten
districts of Suriname, except for Wanica, where it came in a very close second. In Nickerie,
where Hindustanis predominate, Bouterse Mega Combination handily defeated the New Front
by close to a 2 to 1 ratio! Hindustanis also voted for Bouterse in large numbers in Wanica,
where they predominate. Even in Javanese Commewijne, Bouterse coalition won a plurality of
the votes. The conclusion that can be drawn is unmistakable: Surinamers in 2010 did not simply
vote race. As in other political systems, their vote likely reflected fuller consideration of all of
their interests.



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Table 3. Legislative Elections, 2000-2010
Percentage Votes by District
New Front (NF) and Mega Combination (MC)

Districts 2000 2000 2005 2005 2010 2010
NF MC NF MC NF MC
Paramaribo 49.3 15.1 41.7 25.7 35.35 44.68
Wanica 55.6 9.6 47.6 19.9 38.02 34.19
Nickerie 45.8 8.7 36.6 16.4 26.58 49.22
Coronie 28.6 23 26.1 28.1 26.16 62.52
Saramacca 31.1 23.3 36.1 25.8 33.22 37.16
Commewijne 43.7 19.3 49.4 8 28.31 28.45
Marowijne 32.5 17.3 25.9 13.2 7.24 20.10
Para 46.6 25.2 38.7 35.5 21.38 54.21
Brokopondo 23.2 29.6 40.4 17.7 7.12 38.28
Sipaliwini 34.2 27.6 40.4 30.5 9.20 26.09
Source: Electoral Geography 2.0, Suriname. Legislative Election 2000, Legislative Election
2005, Legislative Election 2010.
www.electoralgeography.com/new/en/countries/suriname/suriname-legislative-elec. Accessed
June 26, 2013.
Ethnic groups in contemporary Suriname appear not to be afraid of an outbreak of
ethnically-based confrontations, and no government of Suriname has made a conscious attempt
to suppress the religious or cultural expression of any of its ethnic segments. Ethnic appeals for
voting allegiance are simply not cool in Suriname. Bouterse, as NDP leader, has always
maintained that he was not appealing to any particular race but to the Surinamese people as a
whole, and this has resonated with younger voters. The National Front, by virtue of its
constituent coalition elements, could never credibly make the claim, even though the coalition
partners have refrained from open appeals to race.


21

Evaluating Surinames Consociational Experience
The New Front coalition that governed Suriname from 1987-90 and 1991-96 was clearly
a grand coalition in the Lijphart sense. It was, by composition and purpose, a cartel of elites
intent on stabilizing the political system by keeping the military out of government and setting
Suriname back on the path of parliamentary democracy. Ironically, its success manifested itself
in the outcome of the 1996 elections, which turned the New Front out of office. The fear of
military intervention had receded, and Surinamers felt comfortable enough to consider other
interests, chiefly economic, in casting their vote.
Subsequently, the New Front, its constituent elements notwithstanding, functioned as a
coalition of convenience in the sense that they hoped to win elections by reconsolidating the
ethnic voting blocs that had rallied to Henck Arron and Jaggernath Lachmon and to the New
Front in the preceding elections. However, their political opponents had become more war-
worthy and began forming coalitions of their own, chipping away at the New Fronts ethnic base
by nationalist appeals and critiques of the Fronts economic performance. The elections of 2010
finally shattered the New Fronts subterranean claim to be representing the major ethnic groups
in Suriname, which, of course, raises the question about whether Suriname today is still an
ethnically segmented society.
The election results, by district, would suggest that Surinamers from the three major
ethnic groups migrated toward a party making nationalist appeals. While the 2010 elections
showed this in dramatic way, the pattern had been evident in the 2005 elections, when the New
Front coalition failed to win a majority of seats in the National Assembly because they could not
22

corral the major ethnic groups into consolidated voting blocs. Just as Belgium and the
Netherlands do not resemble their post-World War II cultural selves, described by Lijphart,
Suriname too appears to have shed the rigidities associated with its racial voting past.. There are
different ethnic groups, to be sure, and different religions, but homogenizing forces have
contributed to a migration toward a society that is more culturally plural. Language is one of
those forces. Although Hindustanis speak Hindustani and Javanese speak some version of
Javanese, all Surinamers speak Dutch and the Sranan Tongo dialect. Not only does the Dutch
language provide a homogenizing influence, but the Netherlands continues to serve as an
exemplar of tolerance for Surinamers, many of whose relatives reside in the Netherlands. It is
quite amazing to see a people in an independent country so enamored of their former mother
country as Surinamers are of Holland. Generous Dutch aid, and the myriad of strands
connecting Suriname and the Netherlands have given Surinamers a better standard of living than
their neighbors, and have had a salutary effect on the politics and political development in
Suriname.
Finally, one can say, with confidence, that consociational democracy la Lijphart
contributed immensely as a transitional phase to a healthily performing democratic system in
Suriname, as it did in Venezuela, when the Pact of Punto Fijo obligated the winner of the 1958
elections to include the other parties in this first post-dictatorship government.
28
In the
Venezuelan case, joint service in the government of Romulo Betancourt, 1958-63, was an
important confidence-building exercise, which eventually led to a functioning two-party system
until Hugo Chavez shattered that mold in 1998.
29
The 2010 elections in Suriname came two
decades after the end of military rule, and four electoral cycles under a democratic constitution.
23

What the results showed was that Surinamese voters had matured and that they refused to be
herded on the basis of race when confronted by other nationalizing interests, such as their
common economic welfare. One does not have to like the outcome of the presidential election to
appreciate the fact that parliamentary democracy has become re-embedded in Suriname.
NOTES
1. Tim Padgett, Suriname: The Dictator Who Came in from the Cold, Time Magazine.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2009955,00.html. Accessed June 18,
2013. See also, Ivelaw L. Griffith, The Re-Emergence of Desire (Desi) Bouterse:
Political Acumen and Geopolitical Anxiety, Western Hemisphere Security Analysis
Center, Florida International University, (2011), pp. 11-14.
http://www.normangirvan.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/griffith-suriname.pdf.
Accessed June 14, 2013.
2. Arend Lijphart, Consociational Democracy, World Politics Vol. 20, No. 2 (1969), p.
213.
3. Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1977), p. 25.
4. Jurg Steiner, The Consociational Theory and Beyond, in Comparative Politics.
Vol. 13, No. 3 (1981), p. 344.
5. Ibid., pp. 344-345.
6. Edward Dew, The Trouble in Suriname 1975-1993 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994), p. 1.
7. Chaitram Singh, Guyana: Politics in a Plantation Society (New York: Praeger, 1988), pp.
26-35.
8. Dew, p. 6.
9. Country Human Rights Practices for 1987: Report Submitted to the Committee on Foreign
Affairs, House of Representatives and the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate by
the Department of State. (1988) Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, p. 608.
10. Dew, pp. 20-87; Gary Brana-Shute, Suriname: A Military and its Auxiliaries in Armed
Forces and Society. Vol. 22, No. 3 (1996), pp. 472-473; Chaitram Singh, Reining in the
Military: Re-Democratization in Suriname, Journal of Third World Studies Vol. XXIV,
No. 1 (2007), pp. 75-77; Peter Meel, The March of Militarization in Suriname, in
Anthony Payne and Paul Sutton, eds., Modern Caribbean Politics. Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins Press, 1993), p 130.
11. Dew, p. 32; Meel, p. 129.
12. Meel, p. 140.
13. Singh, 2007, p. 86.
14. Authors interview with former President Shankar, May 13, 2003, in Paramaribo,
Suriname. See also Brana-Shute, p. 480
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15. Organization of American States. (2011) Final Report of the OAS Electoral Observation
Mission for the General Elections in the Republic of Suriname on May 25, 2010. OAS:
Secretariat for Political Affairs, p. 2. http://scm.oas.org/pdfs/2011/CP25611.pdf.
Accessed June 24, 2013.
16. Lijphart, 1969, p. 219.
17. Robert Wright, My Minivan and World Peace, Foreign Policy (May/June 2001), pp. 51-
53.
18. CEDLA. (2000) The Suriname Economy: Experiences of the 1990s and Challenges
Ahead, p. 4. www.cedla.uva.nl/50_publications/pdf/cuadernos/cuad08/pdf. Accessed
June 22, 2013.
19. Ibid., pp. 9-13.
20. Braumann, Benedikt, and Sukhdev Shah. (1999) Suriname: A Case Study of High
Inflation, a Working Paper of the International Monetary Fund, pp. 4-10.
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.cfm?sk=3336.0 Accessed June 22, 2013.
21. Ibid., p. 3.
22. Suriname, Europa World Yearbook 2013 (London: Europa Publications, 2013), p. 4266.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. Suriname Nationale Assemblee (National Assembly): Last Elections, Inter-
Parliamentary Union, 2011, p. 291. www.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/arc/2299_11.htm.
Accessed June 24, 2013.
27. Ibid.
28. Lynn R. Kelley, Venezuelan Constitutional Forms and Realities, John D. Martz and
David J. Myers, eds. Venezuela: The Democratic Experience (New York: Praeger
Publishers), p.27.
29. Michael Shifter, In Search of Hugo Chavez, Foreign Affairs Vol. 85, No. 3 (2006), pp.
45-46.







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