Suriname achieved independence from the Netherlands in 1975. Most of its political parties formed during the autonomy period (beginning in 1951) and were overwhelmingly based on ethnicity. Suriname has a multi-party system with numerous political parties, in which no one party often has a chance of gaining power alone, and parties must work with each other to form coalition governments. For each election, the political parties combine with multiple parties to obtain the maximum number of seats - for example "V7, The Front, and Megacombination.