WHEN Suriname’s president, Desi Bouterse, ventures outside the country he has to be careful. In 1999 the Netherlands convicted him in absentia of drug smuggling. He dare not fly through Amsterdam, and so, like Robert Mugabe, he commandeers a plane from the national airline when he travels, inconsiderately bumping other passengers. Suriname’s voters have forgiven him for this and much else. In elections on May 25th his National Democratic Party (NDP) won an outright majority in the National Assembly, the first time any party has done so since independence.
That result, made official on June 8th, will have two main consequences. The first is to ensure that Mr Bouterse will remain president. The NDP did not win the two-thirds majority needed to re-elect him in parliament. But if he falls short after two rounds of voting, the choice will move to a special assembly of regional representatives, which can re-elect him with a simple majority. That looks secure.
The second result may be to end, at least for a time, Suriname’s policy of parcelling out government jobs along ethnic lines. The NDP is a multi-ethnic party....
from The Economist: The Americas http://ift.tt/1S7HJen
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