FORMER TEACHER RE-ELECTED PRESIDENT.

Ronald Venetiaan, 64, a former mathematics teacher who ruled Suriname from 1991 to 1996, was reelected president in a National Assembly vote, reports Reuters (August 4, 2000). Venetiaan, who led the first elected Government in the nation of 450,000 people following a military dictatorship and bloody civil war in the 1980s, was elected with the backing of 37 votes in the 51-member Parliament. His center-right New Front coalition scored an upset victory in general elections on May 25, winning 33 assembly seats as voters punished President Jules Wijdenbosch's poor economic track record. Wijdenbosch, who narrowly beat Venetiaan in the 1996 presidential contest, called the May elections a year early after mass street protests last year over runaway inflation and unpaid Government salaries.