Sydney –

Solomon Islands holds national elections on Wednesday, the first since Prime Minister Sogavare signed a security deal with China that has raised concerns among the United States and South Pacific neighbors.

Sogavare pledged closer ties with China, which has been building infrastructure since the Solomon Islands cut ties with Taiwan in 2019, while the opposition favored ties with Western donors including Australia and pledged Fixing broken health systems.

National elections have been postponed from 2023 as Sogavare said he wanted to focus on the Pacific Games, which will be held in stadiums donated by China.

background

The Solomon Islands are located 1,600 kilometers (900 miles) northeast of Australia and have a population of approximately 700,000. They are made up of six main islands: Choiseul, Guadalcanal, Majilla, Malaita, New Zealand Georgia Island and Santa Isabel Island.

Elections for the national parliament and provincial assemblies will be held on the same day.

Polling stations open at 7am and close at 4pm, and alcohol is prohibited for a week. The campaign blackout began on Tuesday.

The 50 members of the National Assembly are elected for four-year terms. After polling day, newly elected MPs vote to elect the prime minister, a process that can take weeks.

Who is running?

Sogavare became prime minister in the 2019 elections after being elected as an independent candidate for the Choiseul-East seat. This time, he is running as leader of the OUR (Ownership, Unity, Responsibility) party.

He served as prime minister four times, but no Solomon Islands prime minister was elected consecutively.

Historically, party alliances have been unstable. In 2019, independent candidates won 37% of the vote, 14% more than the largest party, the Solomon Islands Democratic Party.

Notable opposition figures include:

• Fine Gael’s Peter Kenilorea Jr wants to scrap the China security treaty and favor infrastructure aid from Western countries. He is a former United Nations official and the son of the Solomon Islands’ first prime minister after independence from Britain.
• Matthew Weir of the Solomon Islands Democratic Party and former prime minister Rick Hou of the Democratic Alliance Party formed the CARE coalition, which pledged to address education and health issues, as well as a foreign policy that prioritizes Solomon Islands’ national interests.
• Malaita’s former prime minister, Daniel Suidani, who banned Chinese companies from entering the country’s largest province, is now running for Malaita governorship. His new party, U4C (Umi For Change), will run candidates in the national elections, including former government official Celsus Talifulu.

There are 20 female candidates running. At the last election, only two women were elected.

Security and other issues

A 2019 election observer report noted the traditional role of vote buying, saying “devil’s night” cash handouts may have gone underground due to bans under new laws.

Advertisements this month from the Solomon Islands Electoral Commission urged voters to “keep their votes secret and say no to the buying and selling of votes.”

This is the second election since the departure of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) in 2017. RAMSI is a multinational force comprised of police from Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Fiji.

RAMSI was established in 2003 at the request of the Solomon Islands government to maintain civil order following inter-tribal violence.

When anti-government riots broke out in the capital Honiara in November 2021, Sogavare asked the Australian police to return to restore order. Six months later, the Solomon Islands signed a security agreement with China.

Chinese police and the Solomon Islands International Assistance Force (made up of police and military forces from Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Fiji) are stationed in the Solomon Islands and operate separately under the supervision of the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force.

Election watch groups from Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific, Japan, Europe and the United States will monitor voting and counting, with national and provincial polls taking place on the same day.