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36 seats in the Estates of Suriname 19 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.
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| Constitution |
 Surinameportal |
General elections were held in Suriname in March 1963. [1] The result was a victory for the National Party of Suriname, which won 14 of the 36 seats. [2]
| Party | Seats | +/– | |
|---|---|---|---|
| National Party of Suriname | 14 | +5 | |
| United Hindustani Party | 8 | +4 | |
| Action Front (AG –SDP –NOP–AFD) | 6 | +4 | |
| Party for National Unity and Solidarity | 4 | +2 | |
| Progressive Surinamese People's Party | 4 | 0 | |
| Core Group | 0 | New | |
| Farming Party | 0 | New | |
| Nationalist Republican Party | 0 | New | |
| United Indian Party | 0 | New | |
| Total | 36 | +15 | |
| Source: Nohlen, Gallé | |||
Suriname, officially the Republic of Suriname, is a country in northern South America. Situated slightly north of the equator within the tropics, over 90% of its territory is covered by rainforests, the highest proportion of forest cover in the world. Suriname is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north, French Guiana to the east, Guyana to the west, and Brazil to the south. It is the smallest country in South America by both population and territory, with around 612,985 inhabitants in an area of approximately 163,820 square kilometers. The capital and largest city is Paramaribo, home to roughly half the population.
The early history of Suriname dates from 3000 BCE when Native Americans first inhabited the area. The Dutch acquired Suriname from the English, and European settlement in any numbers dates from the 17th century, when it was a plantation colony utilizing slavery for sugar cultivation. With abolition in the late 19th century, planters sought labor from China, Madeira, India, and Indonesia, which was also colonized by the Dutch. Dutch is Suriname's official language. Owing to its diverse population, it has also developed a creole language, Sranan Tongo.
Barend Willem Biesheuvel was a Dutch politician of the defunct Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP) now the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) party and jurist who served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 6 July 1971 until 11 May 1973.
Henck Alphonsus Eugène Arron was a Surinamese politician who served as the first Prime Minister of Suriname after it gained independence in 1975. A member of the National Party of Suriname, he served from 24 December 1973 with the transition government, to 25 February 1980. He was overthrown in a coup d'état by the military, led by Dési Bouterse. Released in 1981 after charges of corruption were dropped, he returned to banking, his previous career. In 1987, Arron was elected as Vice President of Suriname and served until another coup in 1990 overthrew the government.
Suriname elects on the national level a head of state – the president – and a legislature. The president is elected for a five-year term by an electoral college based on the parliament. The National Assembly has 51 members, elected every five years by proportional representation per district. Suriname has a multi-party system, with numerous parties in which no one party often has a chance of gaining power alone, and parties must work with each other to form coalition governments.
The National Party of Suriname is a political party in Suriname, founded in 1946, and since June 2012 led by Gregory Rusland. For a long time it was the largest ruling party in the country, and it has been in government for a total of over 40 years. Of the 16 general elections held in Suriname, the party or a coalition it was a leading part of finished in first place 11 times. The party tends to be more popular among Afro-Surinamese and multiracial people.
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The 1980 Surinamese coup d'état, usually referred to as the Sergeants' Coup, was a military coup in Suriname which occurred on 25 February 1980, when a group of 16 sergeants of the Surinamese Armed Forces (SKM) led by Dési Bouterse overthrew the government of Prime Minister Henck Arron with a violent coup d'état. This marked the beginning of the military dictatorship that dominated the country from 1980 until 1991. The dictatorship featured the presence of an evening curfew, the lack of freedom of press, a ban on political parties, a restriction on the freedom of assembly, a high level of government corruption and the summary executions of political opponents.
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General elections were held in Surinam on 14 March 1951. The result was a victory for the National Party of Suriname, which won 13 of the 21 seats.
General elections were held in Suriname on 15 March 1967. The result was a victory for the National Party of Suriname, which won 17 of the 39 seats.
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The 1990 Surinamese coup d'état, usually referred to as the Telephone Coup, was a military coup in Suriname on 24 December 1990. The coup was carried out by the acting commander-in-chief of the Suriname National Army (SNL), Police Chief Ivan Graanoogst. As a result of the coup, President Ramsewak Shankar was dismissed from power, and parliament and government were disbanded.
General elections were held in Suriname on 25 May 2020. The elections occurred concurrently with an economic crisis in Suriname, as well as the COVID-19 crisis.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Suriname was caused by Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The virus was confirmed to have reached Suriname on 13 March 2020. The case was a person who travelled from the Netherlands the previous week. On 3 April 2020, one person died. On 3 May 2020, all nine cases had recovered. On 18 May, an eleventh case was identified.
The National Military Council was the ruling military junta of Suriname between the 1980 Sergeants' Coup and the 1987 general election.
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