The Solomon Islands 17 April election was the 12th since independence in 1978. This was the first ever election in which the entire outgoing cabinet contested unified as a single party: the Ownership, Unity and Responsibility (OUR) Party, led by four-time Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare. 

The outcome was not as expected either by the outgoing government itself, or by diplomats and media commentators in Australia and New Zealand¹. Sogavare, and the OUR Party, failed to secure a legislative majority, although the setback was not so large as to prevent that party reconfiguring itself under new leadership and reassuming office. More than half of the outgoing ministers and other OUR incumbents lost their seats and none of that party’s newer candidates were successful². Nevertheless, OUR remained the largest party, with 15 seats, while former opposition leader Matthew Wale’s Solomon Islands Democratic Party (SIDP) obtained only eleven MPs and Peter Kenilorea’s United Party secured six (see Table 1). Ahead of the post-election contest for the prime ministerial portfolio, Sogavare stepped aside as the OUR Party candidate. Buoyed by the support of independents and smaller parties, the previous foreign minister Jeremiah Manele became Prime Minister with 31 votes as compared to Matthew Wale’s 18 (one MP was absent)³.

Table 1: Results of the Solomon Islands 2024 Election

Ownership, Unity & Responsibility Party	15
Solomon Islands Democratic Party	11
United Party	6
People First Party	3
Solomon Islands Party for Rural Advancement	1
Iumi for Change	1
Kadere	1
Democratic Alliance Party	1
Independents	11
Total	50

Source: https://solomonelections.net/results.

The Solomon Islands comprises a double-chain of forest-covered high volcanic islands, fringed by outlying smaller atolls and raised coral islands. It is located to the east of Papua New Guinea and to the north of Australia. The country has a population of 761,000, of whom around 13% inhabit the capital, Honiara, located on the island of Guadalcanal. The Pacific Island State was a British protectorate from 1893 until 1978 and became a major theatre of conflict during the Pacific War. Since independence, the Solomon Islands has relied on a first-past-the-post electoral system which is presently used in 50 single-member districts. A Governor-General is the representative of the Head of State (the British Queen), and the country remains a member of the Commonwealth. Political parties are normally of limited significance during election campaigns, outcomes of which are largely driven by personal or kinship loyalties. Factional alliances become more important during the post-election contest for the Prime Ministerial portfolio. After elections, MPs habitually travel from outlying constituencies to join ‘camps’ in the capital, Honiara, normally located at the major international hotels. After the April 2024 election, Sogavare’s OUR Party set up their camp at the Cowboy’s Grill, a restaurant in eastern Honiara, while the opposition CARE coalition, linking Wale’s SIDP and Rick Hounipwela’s Democratic Alliance Party, established their rival headquarters at the Heritage Park Hotel close to the town centre.

The April election was the first since the Solomon Islands switched its diplomatic links from Taiwan to China in 2019, and then signed a security deal with Beijing in April 2022. That deal provoked considerable anxiety in Australia, which at the time was in the midst of a federal election campaign⁴. A leaked draft of that security arrangement gives the Chinese navy the right (with the consent of the Solomon Islands Government) to ‘make ship visits’ and gives Chinese police and riot police the ability (at the Solomon Islands’ request) ‘to protect the safety of Chinese personnel and major projects’ ⁵. With some election campaign-driven exaggeration, then Australian opposition foreign affairs spokesperson Penny Wong (now Australian foreign minister) at the time called the Solomon Islands-China security deal ‘the worst foreign policy blunder in the Pacific since the end of World War II’ ⁶. The Solomon Islands’ relationship with China likewise provoked attention in the United States. In mid-2019, United States Vice-President Mike Pence put considerable pressure on the Solomon Islands to retain its ties with Taiwan⁷. After the 2019 switch, Washington endorsed a SCALE aid program for agriculture on the island of Malaita, where the provincial government remained firmly opposed the diplomatic switch to China⁸. Despite a great recent emphasis on American re-engagement with the region, culminating in President Biden’s September 2022 announcement of a US$810 million package to counter Chinese expansion in the Pacific, the SCALE Program was wound down ahead of the 2024 election⁹. 

Figure 1: Incumbents Re-contesting in 2024

Notes: SIDP is Solomon Islands Democratic Party, OUR is Ownership Unity and Responsibility Party, UP is United Party, PF is Peoples First Party, DA is Democratic Alliance Party.

Although the 2019-24 Prime Minister Sogavare signed the China security agreement, he insisted that Australia remained his country’s ‘security partner of choice’. Sogavare defended a wider ‘friends to all, enemies to none’ foreign policy and promised major gains in economic development and trade arising from the new alliance with China. Contrary to numerous Australian media reports, he denied that the security pact would allow a Chinese naval base to be constructed in the Solomon Islands. Over 2022 and 2023, the Australian and Chinese governments competed via donations of equipment, either firearms, vehicles or water cannons, to the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force¹⁰. Ahead of the April election, Australia renewed its commitment to deliver security assistance via a Solomon Islands Assistance Force (SIAF), a policing arrangement arranged under a bilateral security treaty signed in 2017 which entailed Australian police being deployed to counter riots in the capital in 2019 and 2021¹¹. Geo-political rivalries became a major focus of the election campaign, with some opposition MPs promising to jettison the China security deal and restore diplomatic links with Taiwan¹². Encouraged by Russian and Chinese media commentary, Sogavare claimed that the United States and Australia were seeking to undermine his re-election campaign¹³. In his East Choiseul constituency, which has long been a fairly safe seat, Sogavare faced a major challenge from David Qurusu, winning by only 1,808 votes to Qurusu’s 1,549, a closeness which the outgoing Prime Minister explained by ‘extensive efforts by the United States to influence the outcome’ with the evidence being ‘clear displays of the United States’ flag’¹⁴. During the post-election period, too, there was a front page media claim in the Solomon Star that US and New Zealand diplomats were aligned with the opposition in an effort to topple the Sogavare government¹⁵. These allegations were strongly denied by both New Zealand and the United States.

Figure 2: Solomon Islands Log Production & Exports, 2011-2023

Source: Central Bank of the Solomon Islands Quarterly Review.

Cleavages around foreign policy may have animated the political elites, but there is little evidence that they influenced electoral results out in the rural constituencies. Policy issues tend not to be decisive in Melanesian election campaigns, and foreign policy issues even less so. Campaigns instead typically focus on personal loyalties or the extent of patronage, including expenditure of Rural Constituency Development Funds (RCDFs, ie funds disbursed by individual MPs). OUR party incumbents may have fared poorly at the 2024 polls, but Wale’s SIDP – which was critical of the break with Taiwan – also saw 40% of its sitting MPs lose their seats (see Figure 1)¹⁶. OUR Party incumbents did not poll particularly badly on Malaita, despite the provincial government on that island having held out against the switch to China after 2019. One result at the provincial level, which saw simultaneous elections on 17 April 2024, did appear to indicate support for the pro-Taiwan position. The former Premier of Malaita Province, Daniel Suidani, had fought a long-running battle with the national government over 2019-2023, until he was ousted in a national government-sponsored no confidence ballot on the floor of the provincial assembly in February 2023. He was re-elected on 17 April. However, his new Iumi for Change Party (‘You and me for Change’) only secured a single seat at the national level and the constituency-level victor in his broader Fataleka constituency on Malaita is from the ruling OUR Party. 

The influence of the China switch on the April 2024 election was indirect. OUR Party campaign rallies around the country were well-financed, particularly for the more prominent candidates such as former Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, Party President Jimson Tanagada and East Guadalcanal MP Bradley Tovosia (other OUR incumbents ran much more sparse campaigns). At launches, Sogavare’s speeches typically extolled the virtues of the new China alliance as having delivered sizable developmental gains in road- and bridge-building, and other infrastructure assistance. These claims sat uneasily alongside a sharp contraction in GDP over the years preceding the election. According to both the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, GDP declined by over 8% in 2020-22, with only a weak recovery fuelled by running the Pacific Games in late 2023¹⁷. For decades, round log exports have been the Solomon Islands’ critical source of foreign exchange, but since 2018 the log export industry has witnessed a steep downturn, largely due to a decline in the Chinese real estate market and the associated building contraction¹⁸. Whether measured in value or volume terms, log exports were less than half their 2018 levels in 2023 (see Figure 2). Despite high profile grant-funded projects, such as the stadium built by China in central Honiara for the 2023 Pacific Games, Chinese firms have so far been unable to find plentiful opportunities for lucrative concessional loan-financed commercial schemes analogous to those attracting the belt and road initiative projects seen in Southeast Asia or Africa.  

Other factors that damaged former Prime Minister Sogavare’s bid for a fifth term included revelations by the US-funded Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) that his expensive real estate deals in Honiara could not have been funded by his prime ministerial salary¹⁹. During the 2003-17 period, when the Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) was in the country, Sogavare acquired considerable support both in the Honiara political elite and among those poorer predominantly Malaitan town dwellers who inhabit squatter settlements in the capital, as a ‘nationalist’ leader prepared to stand up against what was widely perceived as Australian intrusiveness. Much has changed since. Riots followed Sogavare’s election as Prime Minister in 2019²⁰. Further major riots broke out in November 2021, triggered by Malaitan protest over the country’s diplomatic switch from Taiwan to China. During those disturbances, rioters targeted the Prime Minister’s dwelling in eastern Honiara (which was what encouraged him to seek a policing deal with China). Sogavare’s 2023 move to amend the Constitution to give himself an extra seven months in office, on the pretext that elections could not be held simultaneously with the Pacific Games, was also unpopular. In tandem with declining urban popularity, Sogavare became increasingly dependent on his ties to China. In late 2021, the Sogavare-led government survived a ‘no-confidence’ challenge on the floor of parliament, buttressed by support from Beijing²¹. 

Numerous court cases typically follow general elections in the Solomon Islands, with that number reaching 25 of the 50 contests following the 2024 polls²². Most of these cases allege bribery or treating. Where successful, single-seat by-elections will be held. Matthew Wale, Manele’s rival for the top job, has also contested the legality of the prime ministerial election, claiming that the timeframe for nominations was insufficient²³. Wale himself was accused of financial irregularities ahead of the 2024 election, through offering to pay rivals not to contest in his Aoke-Langalanga constituency²⁴. The OCCRP revealed evidence that together with the Chinese firm Win Win, East Guadalcanal MP Bradley Tovosia had used RCDF money to construct a ‘road to nowhere’ that travelled 20 kilometres into the interior of his constituency, before halting, amidst speculation that the Chinese firm’s motive was to prospect for minerals²⁵. One novel allegation of irregularities, ahead of the election, was OUR Party’s criticism of the Solomon Islands Electoral Commission for allegedly seeking to sway candidates against incumbents by use of advertising text messages such as ‘You are never too little to make a CHANGE. The Power is in Your Two Votes. People with Disabilities, Women, Young People, Everyone. April 17 – Make that CHANGE’²⁶.  

Major scalps at the 2024 election included the defeats of former 2010-11 Prime Minister Danny Philip, two-term East Honiara MP Douglas Ete, and three-term Gao-Bugotu MP Samuel Manetoali. After two terms out of parliament, 2011-14 Prime Minister Gordon Darcy Lilo made a comeback as an MP, but no longer contesting his former Gizo-Kolombangara constituency in the west. Instead, he successfully campaigned for the Central Honiara constituency, correctly calculating that the incumbent would be unable to retain his seat. Three women were elected at the national level (6%), and an additional five (8%) to the provincial assemblies. Turnout across the country was 82.3% of registered voters, slightly below the 86.4% at the 2019 election. In the past, turnout has been lower because voters in the urban centres tended to register twice: once in their place of residence and once in their home districts, although they normally only recorded a single vote (as controlled by the inking of the finger). Ahead of general elections, many Solomon Islanders throng to the Honiara docks to travel to their home areas. At the 2014 election, biometric voter registration was introduced for the first time, which has greatly diminished the extent of duplicate registration²⁷. Some duplicate registrations continued thereafter, but biometric voter registration made it easier to identify these²⁸.   

Independents fared well at the election of 2024, taking eleven of the 50 seats. Yet, historically, so-called ‘independents’ have fared better still, accounting for 21 of the 50 seats at the previous election in 2019 and 32 of the total seats at the 2014 polls. Independents are better described as unaffiliated, or as-yet-unaffiliated MPs, rather than MPs who are ideologically neutral with respect to the platforms of the major parties (which are, in any case, barely distinguishable on most issues). So-called independents are typically, but not always, first-time MPs. They tend to join the established factions shortly after general elections or else to run as shadow candidates ready to step up if a long-serving incumbent falters. The number of so-called ‘independents’ has been influenced by the passage of the 2014 Political Parties Integrity Act, although that law has not noticeably strengthened political parties²⁹. Wale’s SIDP fared better than all of the other parties in securing new first-time MPs: seven of its eleven MPs were newcomers, either first-timers or in one case a temporarily absent returning MP³⁰. The SIDP did particularly well in the west, sweeping up the three New Georgia seats, and in the extreme eastern Temotu province, where the party obtained two seats. Yet it was the OUR Party that was most able to attract the waverers during the post-election prime ministerial contest, with ten of the eleven independents joining the Cowboy’s Grill camp in eastern Honiara. 

In the wake of past general elections, the outcome of the prime ministerial contest has been highly uncertain³¹. In the days running up to those elections, side-switching has typically been common, even to the extent of even changing the coalition in pole position to form a government. By contrast, the camps into which the bulk of the politicians divided themselves in 2024 resembled the pre-election alliances, and there was little change thereafter. Fewer independents strengthened the position of OUR Party at the Cowboy’s Grill and the CARE coalition at the Heritage Park, particularly after Peter Kenilorea’s United Party predictably joined the Heritage Park camp. Peter Kenilorea, son of the country’s first post-independence Prime Minister and later long-serving Speaker of Parliament of the same name, was himself a potential candidate for the prime ministerial portfolio. So too was 2011-14 Prime Minister Gordon Darcy Lilo, who set up a separate camp at the Honiara Hotel, but failed in his effort to persuade the Heritage Park camp to promise him the finance ministry and deputy prime ministership. It was Wale’s name that went forward to the Governor General as the Heritage Park camp’s nominee for the prime ministerial portfolio, raising familiar cries about ‘Malaitan dominance’ in government (since both the Governor General and Matthew Wale are from Malaita, as is Peter Kenilorea). However, even before the submission of those nomination papers it was clear that OUR Party had managed to attract sufficient so-called independents to form the next government. 

With Jeremiah Manele now at the helm as Prime Minister, the Solomon Islands is likely to improve its relationship with Australia and other traditional partners, but cabinet remains strongly supportive of the alliance with China. Most of the core ministers are the same as those in the 2014-19 government, although the so-called ‘independent’ MPs have also been accommodated. Manele was a career diplomat and civil servant before he entered politics. In 2014, he was aligned with the opposition. After joining the government, he played an important role after the 2019 polls in brokering the diplomatic switch to China, before becoming Minister of Foreign Affairs. Since becoming Prime Minister, Manele has reaffirmed support for the ‘friends to all, enemies to none’ foreign policy. His election was welcomed by the Global Times, the Chinese government’s mouthpiece, as representing ‘the broad voice of Pacific Islanders seeking to continue mutually beneficial cooperation with China’³². Sogavare remains in cabinet as Minister of Finance, although the Deputy Prime Minister portfolio went instead to Bradley Tovosia. As is usual in Melanesian politics, government has initially strengthened since its election³³. Typically, the opposition benches in Melanesia swell towards the mid-term. Like so many of his predecessors, Manele will face difficulties holding together a fractious governing coalition, particularly given the simultaneously challenging economic and fiscal situation. 

The Solomon Islands 2024 election was one in which an incumbent Prime Minister, and his cabinet, staked everything – including their re-election prospects, the likelihood of political stability, and the economic development of their nation – on the new alliance with China. The outcome of that election indicates that the country’s long-run difficulties – political instability, the threat of urban violence and the absence of sufficient economic ventures to absorb the under-employed – have not been addressed and cannot be resolved by shifts in foreign policy alone.