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Solomon Islanders queue up to vote outside a polling station in Honiara on Wednesday – Copyright AFP Saeed KHAN<\/small><\/em><\/p>\nSolomon Islanders began voting Wednesday in an election that could reshape regional security, with citizens effectively choosing if their Pacific nation will deepen ties with China.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has pledged to further bolster relations with Beijing if he is re-elected, while his main challengers want to wind back China\u2019s growing influence.<\/p>\n
Swelling crowds gathered early outside guarded election booths in the capital Honiara, pouring in to cast their ballots when voting opened at 7:00 am local time.<\/p>\n
Honiara lawyer Eddie Toifai, in his 40s, said a long-promised flood of Chinese aid had failed to make life better in one of the world\u2019s least-developed nations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have severed ties with Taiwan and we have developed ties with China,\u201d he told AFP, while tramping through a muddy lot to cast his ballot. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, I was hoping that would bring change to this country, but I\u2019m yet to see that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shading herself under an umbrella, teacher Hilda Nuake, 49, was fretting about the dilapidated state of basic services and the nation\u2019s health system. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMany times we run short of medicine and places for sleeping (in hospitals). We just sleep on the floor,\u201d she told AFP.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was a common refrain \u2014 Wilma Junior feared her children faced a bleak future without a change of government.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI want scholarships for my children to study but there is nothing there. I have to tell my daughter she is better off just getting married. Finding a husband.\u201d<\/p>\n
Voting day is an immense logistical challenge in Solomon Islands, a nation of some 720,000 people spread across hundreds of volcanic islands and coral atolls.<\/p>\n
Ballot boxes and voting papers have been despatched by boat, plane and helicopter to the many far-flung villages that make up the \u201cHapi Isles\u201d.<\/p>\n
Teams of international observers are on hand to watch over voting in a nation where elections frequently spell trouble.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Police from Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea are on the ground to help the stretched local forces keep the peace.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Preparing for the prospect of violence after the vote, the Chinese embassy in downtown Honiara hastily erected a temporary steel fence out front this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It is the first election since Solomon Islands severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 2019, giving its backing to Beijing\u2019s \u201cOne China\u201d principle instead.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Security fears \u2013<\/p>\n
Solomon Islands has veered into China\u2019s orbit under the mercurial Sogavare, who signed a security pact with Beijing in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Although the final details are murky, Australia and the United States fear the pact is the first step towards a permanent Chinese military base in the South Pacific.<\/p>\n
Sogavare\u2019s main rivals include Peter Kenilorea, a former United Nations lawyer who wants to abolish the China pact.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Human rights campaigner Matthew Wale and economist Gordon Darcy Lilo \u2014 a former prime minister \u2014 are among other prominent opposition figures.<\/p>\n
Government critic and opposition figurehead Daniel Suidani, a former provincial premier, labelled China\u2019s actions \u201calarming\u201d in the lead-up to election day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring these past five years, there have been so many things that China was involved in. It\u2019s really alarming at the moment,\u201d he told AFP.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Chinatown torched \u2013<\/p>\n
Sogavare\u2019s embrace of Beijing in 2019 partly fuelled a wave of anti-government riots that tore through the Chinatown district in the capital Honiara.<\/p>\n
Violence returned in 2021, when angry mobs tried to storm parliament, torched Chinatown and attempted to raze Sogavare\u2019s home.<\/p>\n
Solomon Islands\u2019 elections are peculiar in that voters do not choose their prime minister.<\/p>\n
Instead, they elect representatives who negotiate behind closed doors to form a ruling coalition and pick a leader.<\/p>\n
The coalition process can sometimes run on for weeks before the nation is finally presented with a government and a prime minister.<\/p>\n
Elections are always boisterous, often tumultuous and sometimes violent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2000, then-prime minister Bart Ulufa\u2019alu was forced to resign after he was kidnapped by gunmen.\u00a0<\/p>\n
International peacekeepers were deployed to quell post-election violence in 2006, with premier Snyder Rini pushed out of office after eight days.<\/p>\n
Honiara residents have frequently cited creeping poverty and the lack of jobs as their main issues in the lead-up to polling day.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Solomon Islands voters go to polls with China’s influence in focus
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#Solomon #Islands #voters #polls #Chinas #influence #focus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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