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 May 2025. No party obtained a majority in the 51-seat

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...

, with the National Democratic Party (NDP) winning 18 seats followed by the ruling Progressive Reform Party of President

Chan Santokhi Chandrikapersad "Chan" Santokhi (; , ; born 3 February 1959) is a Surinamese politician and former police officer who is the 9th president of Suriname, since 2020. After winning the 2020 elections, Santokhi was the sole nominee for president o ...

at 17.

Background

The date was announced by president

in his annual speech at the

on 1 October 2024. After his resignation in mid-October 2024 as minister of Internal Affairs, was succeeded one and a half months later by as minister and as deputy minister. Hassankhan was responsible for organizing the 2025 elections.

Electoral system

The 51 seats in the

are elected using

party-list proportional representation Party-list proportional representation (list-PR) is a system of proportional representation based on preregistered Political party, political parties, with each party being Apportionment (politics), allocated a certain number of seats Apportionm ...

. Previous general elections had been held using ten multi-member constituencies, but following a ruling by the

Constitutional Court A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ru ...

in 2022 that judged that the

malapportionment Apportionment is the process by which seats in a legislative body are distributed among administrative divisions, such as states or parties, entitled to representation. This page presents the general principles and issues related to apportionmen ...

that existed was unconstitutional, it was decided to remedy this by abolishing the constituencies altogether, so that and all 51 seats were elected from a single nationwide constituency. This case was started by Serena Essed. The

approved the new electoral system on 13 October 2023.

Candidates

Fourteen parties contested the elections.

Campaign

Among the major campaign issues was the management of potential revenues from recently discovered oil deposits, with National Democratic Party (NDP) leader Jennifer Geerlings-Simons pledging to require "all enterprises to work with Surinamese and buy Suriname products" as part of efforts to ensure access by the population to benefits from oil revenues. Incumbent president

, of the Progressive Reform Party (VHP), pledged to maintain Suriname's status as a carbon-negative country and use some of the oil revenues in the transition towards a

green economy A green economy is an economy that aims at reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities, and that aims for sustainable development without environmental degradation, degrading the environment. It is closely related with ecological econ ...

and related projects, noting that the reserves would be exhausted in 40 years. He also pledged to use the revenues for cash handouts under the "Royalties for Everyone" program.

Results

Initial results showed that no party obtained a majority in the National Assembly, with the NDP winning 18 seats followed by the ruling VHP at 17. The remaining 16 seats were won by smaller parties. Turnout was estimated to be at least 58%. On 27 May, the NDP announced that it had formed a coalition agreement with the

General Liberation and Development Party The General Liberation and Development Party (, ABOP) is a political party in Suriname, founded and chaired by ex-rebel leader Ronnie Brunswijk in 1990 after several members of the BEP were expelled. The former Vice President of Suriname, Rob ...

, 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 ...

Pertjajah Luhur The Pertjajah Luhur (PL; ) is a political party in Suriname. Founded in 1998 by Paul Somohardjo, it aims to represent Javanese Surinamese Javanese Surinamese are an ethnic group of Javanese people, Javanese and by extension Indonesians, Ind ...

Alternative 2020 Alternative 2020 ( ''Dutch'': Alternatief 2020) (A20) has been a political party in Suriname since June 2019. History The party is led by the pastor of the Pentecostal Full Gospel Church Logos International in Paramaribo. The party is based on ...

and the Brotherhood and Unity in Politics. The coalition has enough votes to elect Jennifer Geerlings-Simons as Suriname's first woman president. Between them, the parties in the NDP-led coalition have 34 seats, exactly the two-thirds supermajority required to elect a president without the need for support from other parties.

Results by district

References

{{Surinamese elections

General election A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from By-election, by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. Gener ...

Surinamese general election Elections in Suriname