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The Solomon Islands have elected former top diplomat Jeremiah Manele as their next prime minister. Analysts say this could signal a shift toward the Pacific island nation’s traditional Western allies after it sought closer ties with China.
MPs on Thursday morning elected Manele, a former foreign minister who signed a security deal with Beijing in 2022 that alarmed other Pacific powers including the US and Australia.
The Solomon Islands have been a geopolitical flashpoint in the Indo-Pacific over the past five years as China’s growing influence has unsettled the region’s traditional security partners.
Manele is expected to maintain ties with China, but analysts suspect he could be more conciliatory toward the West than the charismatic outgoing Prime Minister Manasse Sogavare, whose policy of forging closer security and trade ties with Beijing has disrupted the traditional distribution of power in the country confused the region.
Marion Crawshaw, a former New Zealand diplomat and the country’s high commissioner to the Solomon Islands, said Manele was a less “polarizing figure” than the “idiotic” Sogavare, who dropped out of the nomination process this week after his party’s failure in last month’s election to win a majority.
“It is a positive thing for Solomon Islands to make this transition. There is definitely a shift towards a new generation,” said Crawshaw, who now works at the Victoria University of Wellington Center for Strategic Studies.
Manele, who was first elected in 2014, led the foreign ministry when Sogavare’s government shifted diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 2019.
He has vowed to maintain Sogavare’s foreign policy of “friends to all, enemies to none” and said on the steps of parliament after his election that he would seek to lead a “government of national unity” focused on improving the economy .
Mihai Sora, a research fellow at the Lowy Institute’s Pacific Islands Program, said Manele was unlikely to abandon the security agreement with China but could be open to strengthening ties with traditional allies such as Australia, with whom Sogavare is “a tough sell.” have. .
“He [Manele] “Maybe you’ll have a sympathetic ear,” Sora said.
The Ownership, Unity and Responsibility party previously led by Sogavare lost half of its seats in last month’s national elections, considered one of the most consequential since the country’s independence 50 years ago.
During the election campaign, Sogavare had highlighted the benefits of deepening ties with China, such as building a sports stadium in the capital Honiara, and praised Beijing’s political system.
But voters expressed dissatisfaction with his government as opposition candidates, including Matthew Wale, who was the alternative candidate for leader in Thursday’s vote, exploited growing unrest over the country’s economic prospects and the influence of foreign logging and mining companies .
No party gained a majority in parliament, leading candidates to garner the support of independent MPs. Manele defeated Wale by a margin of 31 votes to 18.
Sora said Manele was under pressure to address voter dissatisfaction with the state of economic development and was cautious to avoid inflaming tensions after an outbreak of violence in 2021 that followed the change in diplomatic recognition away from Taipei.