Chan Santokhi

Chandrikapersad Santokhi was born on 3 February 1959 in Lelydorp, in what was then the Suriname district and is now Wanica. He came from an Indo-Surinamese Hindu family and grew up in the countryside as the youngest of nine children. His father was a farmer who also worked as a labourer at the harbour of Paramaribo, and his mother worked as a shop assistant at a Chinese-owned supermarket in Lelydorp.

Santokhi earned his VWO diploma at the Algemene Middelbare School (AMS) in Paramaribo. With a state scholarship he studied at the Dutch Police Academy in Apeldoorn from 1978 to 1982. In an interview with Prem Radhakishun he recalled that many people thought he was mad to return to Suriname after graduating, to serve as a police officer under the military dictatorship of Desi Bouterse.

Santokhi returned to Suriname in September 1982 and, from the age of 23, worked as a police inspector in Geyersvlijt and later Wanica. In 1989 he became head of the national criminal investigation department, and in 1991 he was appointed commissioner of police and head of the judicial service of the Suriname Police Force. From 2000 he led the investigation into the December murders of 1982. He was a member of Rotary Club Suriname from 1997, served as a club president in 2005 and 2006, and received a Paul Harris award.

In September 2005 Santokhi became Minister of Justice and Police in the third Venetiaan government for the Progressive Reform Party. His period in office was marked by a tough approach to crime, especially drug trafficking, which earned him the nickname 'Sheriff', a label first used by Desi Bouterse. Supporters credited his policies with removing Suriname from US lists of major drug transit countries. In June 2006 Guyanese drug lord Roger Khan was arrested in Paramaribo and, on Santokhi's orders, removed to the United States at the end of that month, a decision that caused fierce debate in parliament and tension with Guyana. Khan was later sentenced in New York to 40 years in prison. Santokhi also had a heavily secured courtroom built at Boxel, Domburg, so that the December murders trial could open in November 2007.

As the driving force behind the December murders prosecution, Santokhi became a frequent target of the main suspect, Desi Bouterse. Days before the trial began in November 2007, Bouterse claimed at a rally that the 'sheriff' wanted to imprison and kill him, and Bob Marley's 'I Shot the Sheriff' was played to the crowd. In 2008 Bouterse accused Santokhi of links to drug criminals. Santokhi sued for slander and defamation, and on 23 September 2008 a court ruled the allegations unproven and ordered Bouterse to publish a correction, which he did. Santokhi later strongly opposed the 2012 amnesty law aimed at shielding the suspects. In November 2019 the court sentenced Bouterse to 20 years in prison in the case.

In the 2010 election Santokhi received the most personal votes after Bouterse despite a low place on the VHP list, and the New Front nominated him for president, but Bouterse's coalition held 36 of 51 seats and won. On 6 December 2010 he was elected chair of the OAS Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) for one year, having been its vice-chair and Suriname's representative for many years. On 3 July 2011 he succeeded Ramdien Sardjoe as VHP chairman after winning 85.6 percent of the internal vote, and in 2012 he became leader of the New Front. He worked to turn the VHP into a multi-ethnic party and led it as the largest opposition party until 2020.

The VHP won 20 seats in the May 2020 election and formed a coalition with ABOP, NPS and PL. On 13 July 2020 Santokhi was elected president by acclamation as the only candidate, with Ronnie Brunswijk as vice president, and he was inaugurated on 16 July 2020 on Independence Square without a public audience because of the pandemic. He took his oath reciting Sanskrit shlokas. His government faced a sovereign debt crisis, agreed an Extended Fund Facility with the IMF in December 2021 and negotiated restructurings with the Paris Club, India and private bondholders. The removal of fuel and electricity subsidies and high inflation led to anti-austerity protests, and on 17 February 2023 protesters stormed parliament and looted shops in Paramaribo, which his government condemned. In September 2021 he made the first visit by a Surinamese president to the Netherlands since 2008 and delivered the Anton de Kom lecture in Amsterdam. He chaired CARICOM from July to December 2022. On 1 October 2024 he received TotalEnergies and APA in Paramaribo as they announced the final investment decision on the GranMorgu oil project in offshore Block 58. Critics accused him of placing allies and relatives in senior posts, including his wife on the supervisory board of Staatsolie.

Santokhi was first married to Sharda Ramkisoen. They had two children, a daughter and a son, and formally divorced on 9 June 2008. In July 2020, days after becoming president, he married his long-term partner Mellisa Seenacherry, a lawyer, in a private ceremony. He was a Hindu and lived in Lelydorp.

Santokhi presented himself as a defender of the rule of law, arguing that international crime required an international response. He opposed impunity for the December murders and the 2012 amnesty law. As party leader he said he wanted to rejuvenate and modernise the VHP and broaden it beyond its traditional base. He championed ties with India and the Indian diaspora, as well as closer relations with the Netherlands, the United States, Brazil and the Caribbean.

Santokhi is remembered as the police commissioner and minister who made the December murders trial possible and as the president who steered Suriname through an IMF programme and debt restructuring at a heavy social cost. Tributes after his death came from India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who called him a friend, Guyana's President Irfaan Ali, CARICOM, OAS Secretary General Albert Ramdin and Trinidad and Tobago's Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

Honorary Order of the Yellow Star (Grand Officer in 2010, later Grand Master as president). Honorary Order of the Palm, Grand Master (16 July 2020). Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, India's highest honour for the diaspora (January 2021). Paul Harris award from Rotary.

A biography by Ashwin Ramcharan, 'Chan: We gaan Suriname redden', was published by Uitgeverij De Mango Boom in 2020.

The 2006 expulsion of Roger Khan to the United States was criticised as legally irregular by Khan's lawyers and by politicians in Suriname and Guyana. During his presidency austerity measures prompted mass protests and the February 2023 storming of parliament. Opponents also used his own 2015 criticism of Bouterse favouring 'friends and family' against him, pointing to appointments of allies and relatives during his term.

On 30 March 2026 an ambulance was called to Santokhi's home after a medical emergency. He was taken in critical condition to the emergency department of the Academic Hospital in Paramaribo, where he died that afternoon at the age of 67. Early reports cited a suspected heart attack, but no official cause of death was made public. The government opened a condolence register at the Presidential Palace and declared 6 and 7 April 2026 days of national mourning. On 7 April his coffin travelled past his Lelydorp home, the Ministry of Justice and Police and the National Assembly to the VHP centre De Olifant for the official ceremony, attended by President Jennifer Simons and heads of government including Guyana's Irfaan Ali. He was then given Suriname's first state cremation at Uitkijk in Saramacca, and the flag from his coffin was presented to his widow Mellisa.