Suriname’s National Assembly elected physician and opposition leader Jennifer Geerlings-Simons as the country’s first female president on 6 July, giving the 71-year-old the minimum 34 votes required for a two-thirds majority in the 51-seat chamber. She ran unopposed after President Chandrikapersad Santokhi’s Progressive Reform Party, which controls 17 seats, opted not to field a candidate. Geerlings-Simons’ National Democratic Party secured 18 seats in the 25 May election and forged a coalition with five smaller parties to reach the decisive tally. She will be sworn in for a five-year term on 16 July alongside vice-president-elect Gregory Rusland. The incoming administration inherits an economy still strained by IMF-backed austerity and about US$400 million in annual debt repayments. Geerlings-Simons has pledged to stabilise finances and ensure that revenue from recently discovered offshore oilfields—forecast to deliver roughly 220,000 barrels a day from 2028—benefits the Dutch-speaking nation of 646,000 people.