MPs back Solomons leader

Craig Skehan
October 12, 2006

THE SOLOMON Islands Prime Minister, Manasseh Sogavare, overwhelmingly won a parliamentary no-confidence vote last night after a vitriolic speech attacking the Australian Government and its 400-strong law and order restoration force.

In an unprecedented salvo, Mr Sogavare charged that the Opposition no-confidence motion had been "engineered and devised" in Canberra. "The motion is an invasion of the sovereignty of this nation," he said.

Mr Sogavare compared himself with Mari Alkatiri, the East Timorese prime minister forced out of office in June in what his supporters branded an Australian conspiracy.

This came in the wake of claims that funds sourced from the Taiwanese Government, which has been strongly supported by Mr Sogavare in a campaign for membership of the United Nations, had been used to help defeat the motion.

Some Opposition MPs alleged during the parliamentary debate that Asian logging company money had also been distributed to distort the political process.

In the end, Mr Sogavare won by 28 votes to 17 - with five MPs absent - despite a diplomatic confrontation with Australia that included the expulsion last month of the Australian high commissioner, Patrick Cole.

There was a huge security operation in the Solomon Islands for the vote, with roadblocks set up last night around the capital, Honiara, so cars could be searched for weapons.

About 180 Australian police - as well as a military contingent and civilian experts - are in the Solomons as part of a deployment that began in mid-2003 after years of ethnic bloodshed and rampant corruption.

Mr Sogavare came to power through a parliamentary vote following riots in April that destroyed a large part of Honiara.

The Australian Government alleged Mr Sogavare wanted to use a planned commission of inquiry into the riots to secure the release from prison of two allied MPs awaiting trial on charges of inciting the looting and arson.

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