The election of veteran politician Manasseh Sogavare for another term as prime minister of the Solomon Islands yesterday sparked violent protests in the capital, with riot police deployed to maintain order.
Eyewitnesses reported unrest in Chinatown and at least one other area of Honiara after Sogavare won the backing of lawmakers for a record fourth term in office.
Shops and offices closed, and workers were advised to go home as police and community leaders appealed for calm.
Photo: AFP
Following an inconclusive election earlier this month, Sogavare won the backing of 34 of 50 members of parliament in a controversial runoff, with his opponents boycotting the vote.
“I wish to assure the nation that we are listening; it has not fallen on to deaf ears,” he said.
It is the first election in the Solomon Islands since thousands of Australian-led peacekeepers left in 2017.
A 2006 election prompted widespread rioting in the capital, with shops in Chinatown looted and burned down, forcing foreign peacekeepers to step in.
Within hours of the ballot yesterday, there was similar unrest.
“Each time an election of this sort happens, we have to move to my parent’s place, where it is safer,” said a food outlet owner in Chinatown, who asked not to be named. “Imagine each time, we have to pack our stuff, get the kids and move out from our place. It had been like this since the big riot in 2006. It is like the normal thing to do now.”
Sogavare’s last term in office ended abruptly in a 2017 vote of no confidence amid unconfirmed allegations that he had received donations from China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為).
The Solomon Islands is one of Taiwan’s few remaining diplomatic allies, but is being courted by China, which has been investing heavily in the Pacific.
The Solomon Islands, where only about half of the population have access to electricity, is heavily reliant on foreign aid.
In the run-up to the election, several politicians, including Caretaker Prime Minister Rick Houenipwela, were reported to have said that they would review diplomatic relations with Taiwan if elected.
Houenipwela is a member of Sogavare’s Democratic Coalition Government for Advancement.
A Chinese aircraft carrier group entered Japan’s economic waters over the weekend, before exiting to conduct drills involving fighter jets, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said yesterday. The Liaoning aircraft carrier, two missile destroyers and one fast combat supply ship sailed about 300km southwest of Japan’s easternmost island of Minamitori on Saturday, a ministry statement said. It was the first time a Chinese aircraft carrier had entered that part of Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), a ministry spokesman said. “We think the Chinese military is trying to improve its operational capability and ability to conduct operations in distant areas,” the spokesman said. China’s growing
Nine retired generals from Taiwan, Japan and the US have been invited to participate in a tabletop exercise hosted by the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science Foundation tomorrow and Wednesday that simulates a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2030, the foundation said yesterday. The five retired Taiwanese generals would include retired admiral Lee Hsi-min (李喜明), joined by retired US Navy admiral Michael Mullen and former chief of staff of the Japan Self-Defense Forces general Shigeru Iwasaki, it said. The simulation aims to offer strategic insights into regional security and peace in the Taiwan Strait, it added. Foundation chair Huang Huang-hsiung
PUBLIC WARNING: The two students had been tricked into going to Hong Kong for a ‘high-paying’ job, which sent them to a scam center in Cambodia Police warned the public not to trust job advertisements touting high pay abroad following the return of two college students over the weekend who had been trafficked and forced to work at a cyberscam center in Cambodia. The two victims, surnamed Lee (李), 18, and Lin (林), 19, were interviewed by police after landing in Taiwan on Saturday. Taichung’s Chingshui Police Precinct said in a statement yesterday that the two students are good friends, and Lin had suspended her studies after seeing the ad promising good pay to work in Hong Kong. Lee’s grandfather on Thursday reported to police that Lee had sent
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail
RSS