Presidential commission on voting legislation:

“They had enough time to respond”

The presidential commission that has been tasked with evaluating Suriname’s voting legislation pointed out that it deemed the comments and criticism from political parties regrettable. The political parties have rejected the bills that the commission has sent to parliament. The chairman of the commission, Jules Wijdenbosch, claimed that parties had several months to express their opinion regarding the proposal to ban the formation of political blocs before the elections.

Of all the 17 political parties that had been consulted only DA’91 asked the commission to reconsider the proposal. Wijdenbosch pointed out that the statements and opinions that are being expressed right now are unsportsmanlike. He also pointed out that they will get the opportunity to express their wishes and grievances during the parliamentary discussions. The commission has reportedly made 29 proposals. Wijdenbosch pointed out that it is up to the government to decide how to handle them. The commission’s job was to give advice. The government reportedly decided to include one third of all the proposals in bills. The proposal of the National Democratic Party (NDP) to issue a ban on the formation of political blocs prior to the elections has also been included in the bills.

Wijdenbosch is puzzled by the fact that political parties did not reject the proposal when it was presented the very first time. The proposal reportedly is not in violation of the constitution.

Given the many discussions and objections, the government has the liberty to take back the bills and to continue discussing them with the political parties. This would, however, take up too much time.

Critics claim that the govern ment is trying to amend the voting law undemocratically to its own advantage. The commission made it clear that “this is not true.” Wijdensbosch explained that several proposals were produced after broad discussions. The political parties had the chance to express their opinion but did not do so until after the bills had been sent to parliament.