The Solomon Islands’ pro-China leader yesterday accused “agents of Western powers” and shadowy enemies of trying to “pull down” his government, firing the starting gun on a contentious re-election bid.
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has led the Pacific island for almost five years and — having delayed elections once — is seeking re-election on a platform of warm ties with Beijing.
Sogavare made a fiery initial pitch to voters, telling parliament that his country was at the center of a “geopolitical war” between fast-rising China and Western powers that he painted as arrogant has-beens.
Photo: Reuters
Accusing the US of having a “geopolitical superiority complex,” Sogavare said it was the end of US hegemony in the Pacific.
“We must wake up. Those days are over,” he said, while pointing to Chinese investment as a means of breaking his country’s dependence on foreign aid.
The Solomon Islands’ economy has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation and rising commodity prices. It has an annual budget deficit of more than 6 percent of GDP, IMF forecasts for this year showed.
Since coming to office, Sogavare has cut ties with Taiwan and formally established relations with Beijing.
Last year, he struck a secretive security pact with China that the US and Australia fear could give Beijing a military foothold in the South Pacific. He has invited Chinese police to deploy to Solomon Islands and has been a repeat visitor to Beijing.
Critics have accused Sogavare and his party of corruption and using China’s political and economic support to secure his grip on power.
He dismissed those allegations yesterday, saying he had been the target of “fabricated lies by agents of Western powers” who should “realize that their days of dominating and blinding the people of this country are over.”
“I have to go down in the history of this country as the most hated prime minister, the most sworn at, and most falsely accused,” he said. “I am willing to go to prison if I am proven to commit any wrongs against the law.”
“I’m surprised at how low people can go in their hate campaign against the partnership that Solomon Islands forged with the great country of the People’s Republic of China,” Sogavare said.
Elections had been expected earlier this year, but were delayed after Sogavare said it was not possible to hold a vote until after the Solomon Islands hosted the Pacific Games, which ended on Dec. 2.
The parliament is expected to be dissolved later this month, paving the way for elections in the first quarter of next year. No date has yet been set.
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant