Despite expectations that 2024 could be a decisive year for Solomon Islands politics, relatively little changed over the year. This leaves questions about political stability and the balance of foreign influence on the country’s agenda for 2025.
The year began with all eyes focused on the April 2024 election, which some predicted would be the ‘most important … since independence’. It had been controversially delayed by a 2022 constitutional amendment to circumvent a requirement for national elections in mid-2023. Then Solomon Islands prime minister Manasseh Sogavare argued that the country could not financially afford to conduct the election and host the Pacific Games in November 2023. The Opposition doubted this explanation, preferring to believe Sogavare wanted the electoral boost of hosting a major international event.
While consequential, the April elections did not cross the threshold of being monumental domestically or internationally. There was considerable continuity at both levels after the election, at least until the end of 2024.
Sogavare’s Ownership, Unity and Responsibility Party suffered significant personnel reversals in the election but held on to power — even after Sogavare chose to stand aside in the leadership contest for prime minister.
The Government for National Unity and Transformation (GNUT) emerged when Sogavare’s fellow party member and current Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele cobbled together a governing coalition. The coalition comprises two small parties and a large number of independents who were rewarded with ministries.
For external observers, the key question was whether the April election would reverse course on relations with China.
Nationally, Taiwan was on the ballot by proxy as Malaitan politician Peter Kenilorea Jr supported re-establishing ties with Taipei, which were broken in 2019. It was also on the ballot at the provincial level since deferring the election to 2024 synchronised national and provincial elections for the first time since 1997, when the provincial system was established.
Former Malaitan premier Daniel Suidani — who has resisted Chinese investments in Malaita — regained his seat from then premier Martin Fini, marking a setback for China.
The Manele-led GNUT has not changed relations with Beijing materially since the April elections. But Manele has taken a softer line with Canberra, making it his first overseas visit. By the end of 2024 there were further signs that relations may be warming meaningfully.
Despite some bruised sensitivities at the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in Tonga, where Australia’s regional policing support plan was endorsed, Manele delivered an end-of-year olive branch. He accepted Canberra’s AU$190 million (US$117.7 million) four-year program to increase the size of the Solomon Islands police force. He also approved a national security training course for analysts at the Solomon Islands National University.
On the whole, domestic economic challenges rather than external affairs have overshadowed Manele’s GNUT since his election.
Whatever prestige and cultural benefits the Solomon Islands derived from the Pacific Games, the economic bounce was modest. Debt, economic malaise and mismanagement of the COVID-19 recovery program contributed substantially to popular dissatisfaction expressed at the April 2024 polls.
The Solomon Islands Auditor General Office’s highly critical audit of a multimillion-dollar COVID-19 aid package highlighted widespread mismanagement and potential corruption, raising concerns from the International Monetary Fund and Asian Development Bank that supported the loans.
In December 2024, Finance and Treasury Minister Manasseh Sogavare was compelled to bring in a ‘tight budget’ due to the government’s poor fiscal position. The budget imposed drastic fiscal restraints to reduce government expenditure.
Despite the projected financial belt-tightening, Sogavare’s budget included deficit funding for almost a quarter of all government spending, to be covered by bilateral and multilateral donors.
The need for the deficit was criticised by Solomon Islands Opposition Leader Matthew Wale who pointed to nearly SBD$200 million (US$23.5 million) of discretionary tax exemptions given to corporate friends of the GNUT.
A reliance on deficit financing in the Solomons’ budget is a critical reason why its national debt-to-GDP ratio has nearly tripled from 2019 to 2024, mostly under Sogavare’s leadership.
Rather optimistically, Sogavare expressed his hope that the belt-tightening challenges in the budget would serve as a call for national unity. He and the government were quickly disabused of any such hope.
Former Solomon Islands prime minister Gordon Darcy Lilo re-entered parliament after a decade of absence and gave notice of a no-confidence motion in parliament, empowered by rumblings of dissent from the GNUT coalition over the budget.
Lilo cited the government’s poor economic results and Manele’s alleged inability to ‘control his ministers’ as grounds for removing a prime minister after only eight months in office.
Though Lilo withdrew his motion after failing to realise the parliamentary support he expected, media speculation suggested Lilo is prepared to try again if the GNUT does not respond to opposition complaints and internal dissension in 2025.
As severe as the economic hurdles are for the Solomon Islands, demographics guarantee these will only become higher in 2025. Over half the country is under 25 and its birth rate is on track to make the Solomon Islands the second-largest population in the region, ahead of Fiji, within a decade. Yet its GDP remains less than a third of Fiji’s level.
Richard Herr teaches a Parliamentary Law, Practice and Procedure course at the University of Tasmania. He is a former Adjunct Professor of Governance and Ethics at Fiji National University.
Source: East Asia Forum