CHS publishes election results

The Central Main Polling Bureau (CHS) on Tuesday published the results of the general elections of May 25 at a public session. The results that were published indicate that there are no changes in the number of parliamentary seats that the political parties raked in. The Progressive Reform Party (VHP) has 20 parliamentary seats, the National Democratic Party (NDP) has 16, the General Liberation and Development Party (ABOP) has 8, the National Party Suriname (NPS) has 3 and the Party for Brotherhood and Unity in Politics (BEP) and Pertjajah Luhur (PL) each have 2 parliamentary seats.

Eugene Merkus, chairman of the CHS, explained that the members of the bureau had to work under tremendous pressure the past couple of days. “Threats were made but the CHS nevertheless resumed its work,” the CHS chairman told the press and the representatives of the political parties who attended the session. The results indicate that the NDP and the

VHP raked in most of the 51 parliamentary seats. Not all of the 17 political parties that ran for office raked in parliamentary seats. A20, DA’91, PALU, PRO, SDU and STREI! did not rake in any parliamentary seats. VHP got 108,378 valid votes, the NDP got 65,862 valid votes, the NPS got 32,394, ABOP got 24,956, the PL 16,623 and BEP 6,835. The parties with the lowest number of votes are DA’91 with 659, the VVD with 349, the SDU with 254 and the DNW with 70. The VHP also raked in the highest number of resort council seats namely 400 while the NDP raked in 218 resort council seats. The ABOP has 148, the PL 4 and the NPS 2.

“This indicates that only these 5 political parties have representatives on resort council level. There are 772 resort council seats nationwide. Only 4 political parties raked in the district council seats namely the VHP (60), the NDP (35), ABOP (22) and the NPS (1).