PARAMARIBO, Suriname (AP) - Suriname published its final election results Monday, one month after balloting that more than doubled the ranks of a former dictator and left the governing coalition with a precarious majority.

The results were published in the official gazette after election authorities on Friday found no basis for allegations of fraud in the May 25 vote.
"We found nothing significant to sustain the protests that were filed.

It seems unlikely now that anyone will challenge the results," election authority director Jennifer van Dijk Silos said Monday.

The leadership of this former Dutch colony has been in doubt since President Ronald Venetiaan's New Front coalition lost 10 seats, winning 23 of 51 places in the National Assembly.

Venetiaan's coalition has formed an alliance with a coalition of the descendants of former slaves known as Maroons, which won an unprecedented five seats.

The alliance gives the ruling coalition the majority needed to pass laws but falls short of the two-thirds required to choose the next president.

Former dictator Desi Bouterse's New Democratic party, which capitalised on frustration with the slow pace of Venetiaan's economic reforms, won 15 seats, up from seven.

The People's Alliance for Development party of ex-President Jules Wijdenbosch won five seats, and a pro-business alliance won three.

The US and the Netherlands, Suriname's biggest aid donors, had warned prior to the May elections that relations with the South American country of 450,000 people would suffer if Bouterse took power.

The former dictator, who ruled from 1980 to 1987, was convicted in absentia in 1999 for cocaine smuggling in the Netherlands. He also faces charges at home of ordering the killing of 15 political opponents in 1982. Bouterse has denied any wrongdoing in both cases.

The National Assembly is scheduled to convene for the first time on Thursday with outgoing parliamentary speaker Ramdien Sardjoe presiding, Venetiaan's office said Monday.
The process of choosing a president could drag on for weeks if lawmakers fail to negotiate a two-thirds vote.

The process would then fall to the 893 members of regional assemblies, where a simple majority is required. The New Front coalition and the Maroon and pro-business alliances have 635 members in the regional assemblies.

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