General elections were held in

Suriname Suriname, officially the Republic of Suriname, is a country in northern South America, also considered as part of the Caribbean and the West Indies. It is a developing country with a Human Development Index, high level of human development; i ...

on 25 November 1987. They were the first held in the country since the first post-independence elections in

1977 Events January * January 8 – 1977 Moscow bombings, Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group. * January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (no ...

Dieter Nohlen Dieter Nohlen (born 6 November 1939) is a German academic and political scientist. He currently holds the position of Emeritus Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg. An ex ...

(2005) ''Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I'', p614 and the first since a new constitution was approved in a referendum held a month earlier. The Front for Democracy and Development, an alliance of the

National Party of Suriname The National Party of Suriname (, NPS) 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 ove ...

(NPS), the Progressive Reform Party (VHP) and the Party for National Unity and Solidarity (KTPI),Nohlen, p620 won a decisive victory with 40 of the 51 seats with 86% of the vote, the largest vote share achieved by a Surinamese party or alliance since independence in 1975. The National Democratic Party, the political vehicle of

Desi Bouterse Desi ( or or ; Hindustani: देसी , , ) also Deshi, is a loose term used to describe the peoples, cultures, and products of the Indian subcontinent and their diaspora, derived from Sanskrit (), meaning 'land' or 'country'. Desi trace ...

, the country's ''de facto'' leader since a 1980 coup, finished a distant second with three seats. Voter turnout was 85%.

Results

Aftermath

At its first session on 13 January 1988, the National Assembly elected the VHP's Ramsewak Shankar as president. Henck Arron of the NPS, who had led the country as

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

from independence in 1975 until the 1980 coup, became vice president. Their election was assured after the Front for Democracy and Development won 78 percent of the seats at the election. This was enough for Shankar to be elected without the need for support from other blocs; the new constitution required the president to be elected by a two-thirds

supermajority A supermajority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority rules in a democracy can help to prevent a majority from eroding fun ...

of the Assembly. To date, this is the only time under Suriname's present constitution that a party or alliance has won enough seats on its own to elect a president. However, Shankar and Arron only held office for less than two years before being overthrown in 1990 in another coup engineered by Bouterse.

Notes

References

{{Surinamese elections

Elections in Suriname

General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...