Rusland: NPS emerged from low point and rebuilt to six seats

According to Rusland, the party has been engaged in gradual rebuilding since 2012, which ultimately led to six seats in De Nationale Assemblée (Suriname’s parliament). Rusland has headed the NPS since 2012. At the time, he took over the chairmanship from former president Ronald Venetiaan. The party was founded on 29 September 1946 and turns exactly eighty on Tuesday.

Rusland says he considers it a special responsibility to be able to lead a party with a long history in Surinamese politics. “I am very proud to be able to lead this party,” Rusland says. According to him, the NPS has borne responsibility throughout its history both from the opposition and as part of government.

He points to what he says have remained important principles within the party: respect for the rule of law, sound financial and economic governance, and attention to education, healthcare and security. “Broadly speaking, I believe that over the past eighty years the NPS has proven to be a party that the people as a whole can rely on to ensure that things are done properly for the people,” Rusland said.

From governing party to low point

The party chairman also reflects on the political decline experienced by the NPS after 2010. Until 2010, the party held a prominent position in government through the Nieuw Front, with Ronald Venetiaan as president. In the 2010 elections, the NPS won four seats.

Rusland says the party reached an electoral low point shortly afterwards. When he took over the chairmanship in 2012, an opinion poll indicated, according to him, that the NPS could count on only about three percent support.

“That means that at that time we actually had no seats,” he says of that poll. The party still had the four seats in DNA that it had won in the 2010 elections.

The decline continued in the 2015 elections. The NPS was left with two seats. According to Rusland, the party received about 16,000 votes. “Then we had to build from those two seats. The rebuilding of the party,” he says.

Doubling in 2020

In the 2020 elections, the NPS managed to considerably increase its electoral support. The party received more than 32,000 votes nationwide and won three seats. Rusland considers those elections the next step in the party’s recovery. “In 2020, we were able to double the number of votes,” he says.

The next major leap came in the elections of 25 May 2025. Under the new system of nationwide proportional representation, the NPS won six of the 51 seats in De Nationale Assemblée. The Centraal Hoofdstembureau officially established that seat allocation on 10 June 2025.

This meant that over fifteen years, the party went from four seats in 2010 to two in 2015 and three in 2020, before reaching six in 2025. Rusland stresses, however, that in his view the electoral rebuilding is not yet complete.

“We are working to continue growing in the trend we are currently in with regard to seats, so that the NPS can of course take an even more prominent place in the future as a political organisation, as we have done in the past.”

For Rusland, the 80th anniversary is therefore not only about looking back. He also sees the development of recent years as a basis for further growth of the party and a larger role for the NPS within Surinamese politics.