PARAMARIBO, Suriname - One week before voters in Suriname go to the polls to elect a new government, the authorities here have to deal with a situation where more than 650 polling station staff have left the training exercises ahead of the May 25 poll.
Deputy Minister of the Interior, Maurits Hassankhan, and his director, Nasier Eskak, speaking at a news conferenceDeputy Minister of the Interior, Maurits Hassankhan, and his director, Nasier Eskak, speaking at a news conference confirmed that despite leaving the training programme, the 652 people will each receive SRD2, 400 (One SRD=US$0.02 cents) resulting in the state having to pay out at least SRD1.2 million.
They said that the polling workers have withdrawn from the Paramaribo district and that while no agreement was signed, the ministry had promises that everyone who took the training would be paid.
“We didn’t want to put any extra pressure on people, so this time we deliberately chose not to have them sign an agreement,” Eskak said, adding “such an agreement could have included that those who sign up for the training are also obligated to work on election day”.
The authorities said that the payments will made after the elections.
Under the Suriname electoral law, each polling station must be staffed by at least 10 members. In Paramaribo alone, there are 275 polling stations, which brings the total number of people needed to 2,750.
But said Eskak said he is pleased that 1,300 new people have registered this week to work at a polling station and that with this number, the election will not be compromised, the director notes.
The two officials also announced that up until May 14, a total of 275,896 polling cards had been delivered to homes, representing 69.1 per cent of the number of eligible voters.
Hassankhan said in the previous election held in 2015, 89 per cent of the polling cards were ultimately distributed, including the cards that were collected afterwards at an administrative office or at the polling station on election day. In 2020, that figure was 75 per cent.
According to director Eskak, experience shows that approximately 25 per cent of eligible voters do not show up for the elections, amounting to approximately 100,000 votes.
The authorities said that during the door-to-door electoral visits, it became apparent that many people no longer live at the address at which they are registered with the Central Bureau for Civil Affairs.
Eskak said that there is no law that requires citizens to report a change of address immediately, nor a sanction for failing to do so.
Voters in Suriname will cast ballots for the 51 seats in the National Assembly using party list proportional representation. Previous general elections had been held using ten multi-member constituencies, but following a ruling by the Constitutional Court in 2022 that judged that it was unconstitutional, the constituencies were abolished and all 51 seats will be elected from a single nationwide constituency.
No party won an outright majority in the 51-member National Assembly in the 2020 elections and President Chandrikapersad Chan Santokhi is leading his coalition government into the May 25 elections with the main challenge expect to come from the National Democratic Party (NDP) that had been headed for years by the late president, Desi Bouterse.
