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Solomon Islands election: China security ties in focus as tiny Pacific nation heads to the polls
- Geopolitics looms large over the polls in Solomon Islands, where Beijing has been vying for influence with Washington and its allies for years
- But for voters struggling to make ends meet, issues much closer to home like healthcare, education and unemployment may decide Wednesday’s election
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An election in Solomon Islands on Wednesday will be a crucial barometer of voters’ faith in the government of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare following the signing of a controversial security pact between the strategically important country and China.
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Dispersed over 2,000km (1,240 miles), home to around 750,000 people – a quarter of them living in poverty – and increasingly coveted for its position in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the Solomon Islands is wooed by China and the US as a potential ally.
Sogavare, a constant in the archipelago’s politics who has served as prime minister four times, has steered his nation closer towards Beijing since winning the 2019 election. Apart from signing a secretive security pact with China in 2022, he has also taken hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure loans from Beijing in recent years.
Solomon Islands severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 2019, by implication a snub to the old power brokers of the Pacific, the United States and Australia.
“It is an important election. People are calling for change” said Benjamin Afuga, an administrator of the Yumi Toktok Forum, one of the largest public Facebook groups in the Solomon Islands.
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Posts on the forum provide a snapshot of the key concerns of voters such as healthcare, education, unemployment and changes to outdated laws.
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