Over the years, his National Democratic Party has grown from a military clique into the country’s first major multiethnic political movement, breaking down the voting patterns that have divided Suriname since independence from the Netherlands.“He knows the Surinamese society very well, and that’s the key to understanding his success,” said Peter Meel, an expert on Suriname’s history at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Bouterse would later accept “political responsibility” for the killings, but never personal responsibility. “My outlook is more gloomy.”As Suriname was nearing independence in 1975, the Dutch invited Mr. Bouterse and a few dozen other Surinamese officers to return home and build the new national army.The spectacle, virtually unheard-of for a sitting president, stunned the audience.For the president, Desi Bouterse, his conviction before a military court in Suriname was just the latest chapter in a four-decade battle to maintain power. You can have a drink with him, get close to him.”Mr. Suriname will hold legislative elections on Monday that are crucial to convicted murderer President Desi Bouterse's hopes of staying in power for a third term. With his support sliding, his party has skipped all public debates and has instructed supporters to avoid the news media before the vote.If President Desi Bouterse can hang on to immunity, past crimes could become just another chapter in his four-decade battle to stay in power.To compensate for the loss, Mr. Bouterse played the Americans and Soviets for financial support and even hosted a Libyan Embassy, a rarity under Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator. “What I saw was great fear.”Mr. A restless, ambitious youth, he dropped out of high school and enlisted in the Dutch Army, serving, among other places, at a NATO base in Germany during the Cold War, according to Nina Jurna, a Brazil-based Dutch author who wrote a book about Mr. Bouterse.“It was a war against Surinamese people,” said Amanda Sheombar, who was 12 when her cousin, an army sergeant, was killed in the massacre. — AFPVHP won 20 seats in the 51-member parliament and is expected to have the support of three other parties, giving it a combined 33 seats in the National Assembly, which elects the president.Santokhi and Brunswijk met Bouterse this week to discuss a peaceful transfer of power.Former police commissioner and justice minister Chan Santokhi, leader of the main opposition Progressive Reform Party (VHP), is set to become the new president of the oil-and-gold exporting country at the head of a four-party coalition.Among its coalition partners is the General Liberation and Development Party (ABOP), led by Ronnie Brunswijk, a former rebel leader who fought a civil war against former military strongman Bouterse in the late 1980s.© 2020, Malay Mail, All Rights Reserved.PARAMARIBO (Suriname), June 20 — Suriname’s President Desi Bouterse lost last month’s general election after a decade in power, the South American country’s Independent Electoral Bureau confirmed yesterday after weeks of controversy delayed final results.Earlier Bouterse stated that he would only publicly congratulate the winner if the election authority confirmed the result.The official result marks the end of the Bouterse’s long-time rule, after his National Democratic Party won only 16 seats.Bouterse appealed his conviction and the case was postponed until June due to the coronavirus pandemic.The final result had been held up for weeks after both government and opposition cited irregularities, triggering recounts of votes in some districts. Amid an economic crisis and a pandemic, Surinamese will decide whether Mr. Bouterse, 74, will spend his twilight years ruling the country or serving time.But now justice may finally catch up with Mr. Bouterse, Mr. Behr said.Harmen Boerboom contributed reporting from Paramaribo, Suriname.The exact role played by the Netherlands in Mr. Bouterse’s rise to power remains unclear. Guyana’s neighbour, Suriname, is moving forward steadily with its transition to a new government following the country’s General Elections on May 25, 2020. Saturday, 20 Jun 2020 09:27 AM MYT“The voters expressed their opinion on 25 May 2020 and therefore the Independent Electoral Bureau should respect the consequences of democracy,” the bureau’s chairwoman Jennifer van Dijk-Silos told a press conference.Bouterse ruled as a dictator from 1980-87 and seized power briefly a second time in a bloodless coup in 1990. Under Mr. Bouterse’s elected governments, his past excesses were gradually forgotten. Bouterse often attributes the country’s struggles to “white men in shorts,” his moniker for foreign powers like the Netherlands, which governed Suriname for 300 years.When asked once during the Cold War if he was left wing or right wing, Mr. Bouterse replied he was merely a military man, taught to march with “left foot, right foot.”During his career, Mr. Bouterse has been a colonial careerist, a feared military dictator, a magnate and, recently, a populist.“I was expecting to see a strongman,” said Mr. Behr, who was in the courtroom. Bouterse did not respond to repeated requests to be interviewed for this article. Bouterse was first elected president in 2010.In November, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a military court for ordering the execution of political opponents during his first period in power, in 1982.The new president should be sworn in before August 13. 27 May 2020 …
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