The Democratic Alternative '91 (, DA'91) is a liberal

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

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 ...

History

The DA '91 was founded in 1991 when it split off from 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 ...

. The party was founded shortly before the 1991 general election. The intention had been to establish the party in 1991 but the " Telephone Coup" that removed President Ramsewak Shankar from office interfered with the planning. Winston Jessurun was one of the founders, together with Gerard Brunings. Brunings has stated that when establishing the party they asked the Dutch embassy for programs of Dutch political parties and that of Democrats 66 appealed most to them. With the most significant change being changing Netherlands for Suriname. In the 1991 elections, the party obtained 9 seats. At the 1996 elections the number of seats dropped to four. It further dropped to two in the 2000 elections and one in the 2005 elections. Even though the party gained only one seat it was able to join the third cabinet of President

Ronald Venetiaan Ronald Runaldo Venetiaan (born 18 June 1936) is a former politician who served as the sixth president of Suriname. Biography Venetiaan was born in Paramaribo. In 1955, Venetiaan left Suriname to study mathematics and physics at the University of ...

and had one Minister in the cabinet and received an ambassadorship. For the 2010 elections, the DA'91 joined the political alliance

New Front for Democracy and Development The New Front for Democracy and Development () was a social-democratic political alliance in Suriname. At the legislative elections (25 May 2005), the alliance won 41.2% of the popular votes and 23 out of 51 seats in the National Assembly. And a ...

that won 31.6% of the popular vote and 14 out of 51 seats in the

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 ...

. Out of these 14, one seat went to DA'91. For the

2015 elections Africa * 2015 Beninese parliamentary election 26 April 2015 * 2015 Burkinabé general election 29 November 2015 * 2015 Burundian legislative election 29 June 2015 * 2015 Burundian presidential election 21 July 2015 * 2015-16 Central African gene ...

, DA'91 entered the elections as part of the political alliance V7. On 30 September 2015 Angelic del Castilho became chairperson of the party, succeeding Winston Jessurun.

References

External links

* {{Surinamese political parties Liberal parties in South America Political parties in Suriname