In an interview with the newspaper Starnieuws, Santokhi commented that the official results, to be announced in the coming hours, will be the basis for negotiations with the other participating political parties.

“At some point, we must accept the results and work on cooperation options,” stated Santokhi, who confirmed that his group held meetings with party leaders to evaluate strategies.

Santokhi admitted that he hoped that the Progressive Reform Party could retain the current 20 seats in the National Assembly, with about 20,000 votes to be counted.

The president revealed that, even before the elections, there had been contact with other political forces to evaluate the events and possible coalitions, at the time that he assured that “these lines of communication have already been established with all parties, and now we will resume them.”

According to Starnieuws’s report, the National Democratic Party leads the Progressive Reform Party by just one seat in the 51-seat National Assembly, which shows that neither party will reach the 34 necessary chairs to form a government. Thus, the winner must set up alliances with the remaining political forces.

The economic crisis, corruption, and the management of oil revenues overwhelmed the attention of the campaign, which was described as the most closely contested in recent years.

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