A CROWD of perhaps 10,000 packed the Andre Kamperveen stadium in Suriname’s capital, Paramaribo, on Saturday. Performing was a shaven-headed and bearded American rap artist, Rick Ross. Also on stage, Ronnie Brunswijk, a former guerrilla leader and now a larger-than-life politician, rapped, danced, and launched a bid to be his country’s next president. He handed $100 banknotes into the audience and showered handfuls of lower-value Surinamese currency. “I want to make all the poor people in Suriname rich” he said, adding: “If you need $100, call Bravo,” a reference to his Romeo Bravo promotions company, which produced the show. Mr Brunswijik is a proud member of the Aucaner Maroons, descendants of slaves who escaped their Dutch masters in colonial times to establish free villages in the interior. He is also director of a lucrative riverbank-gold mining company and the owner and former trainer of the Inter Moengotapoe football team—indeed, he still kicks a ball with them from time to time.

In politics he leads the General Liberation and Development Party, which draws support from the Aucaner and other Maroon communities and is a crucial component of the governing coalition.

For all Mr Brunswijk’s onstage buffoonery, his party’s influence represents a substantial achievement for Suriname’s Maroons. Many live in isolated interior villages where the government has historically been slow to provide basic services. They were largely outside the political mainstream until a coalition of Maroon parties entered parliament in 2005 with five of the 51 seats, and joined the New Front coalition that was then in power. In 2010 they gained two more seats and switched to a new governing coalition led by Desi Bouterse, a former military dictator. The ministries of social affairs, regional development and transport are now held by members of Mr Brunswijk’s party.

Mr Brunswijk and Mr Bouterse share a colourful past. The Maroon leader began his career 30-odd years ago as a bodyguard for Mr Bouterse while the latter was dictator. He fell out with his former boss and formed the Jungle Commando, a guerrilla group, which fought a bloody interior war against the military regime. In 1986 the army massacred close to 40 people in Mr Brunswijk’s home village of Moiwana. Maroon refugees streamed across the border river into neighbouring French Guiana.

Both men have been accused of cocaine trafficking, which they deny. Each has been tried in absentia in the Netherlands on drug charges; in each case the Dutch judge handed down a heavy prison sentence. Suriname does not extradite its citizens and neither man appears likely to cross the Atlantic to serve time.

Surinamese politics is a bewildering dance in which warring parties form, dissolve, split, shift allegiances and reunify. Mr Brunswijk and Mr Bouterse were bitter parliamentary opponents between 2005 and 2010 (a 2007 video clip shows Mr Brunswijk physically toppling a leading member of Mr Bouterse’s National Democratic Party inside the National Assembly). But since 2010 the two have been firm friends.

Few Surinamese expect Mr Brunswijk to succeed in his presidential bid. The next parliamentary election is due in May 2015; it will be followed by an indirect poll for president. Mr Bouterse turns 70 later that year, but with the economy bouncing through a gold-mining boom he is enjoying his job. Most expect him to seek a second term. If he loses, the most likely winner is a candidate from the New Front. Mr Brunswijk’s fractious alliance of Maroon parties has split since the 2010 election. And although Suriname’s electoral system over-represents the thinly populated interior, it is hard to see even a united Maroon grouping winning more than seven seats.

Mr Brunswijk may be hoping for a kingmaker role, holding the balance of power between the two main party blocs. Meanwhile, running for president is not his only ambition. On Saturday he announced plans to bring Rihanna and perhaps Beyoncé to Suriname, while the latter was making headlines that weekend with a trip to Cuba. If those two events materialise, he may have a chance with the youth vote.