Veteran Solomon Islands politician Danny Philip was declared the 14th prime minister of the Pacific island nation yesterday, beating the only other candidate Steve Abana by three votes.
The election was held amid tight security with access to parliament grounds restricted to MPs and their staff and an alcohol ban in place across the capital, Honiara, to avoid any repeat of the riots that followed the 2006 vote.
Philip received 26 votes to 23 for Abana, with one ballot paper spoiled, Governor-General Sir Frank Kabui announced following the ballot by the 50 successful candidates from the Aug. 4 general election.
The new prime minister said his first priority would be to form a government and then a policy document would be made available in 70 days.
“This is a victory for the people of the Solomon Islands and I thank the people who have supported me in my constituency and in my group,” said Philip, a four-term MP. “I take this opportunity to assure our people that we will govern seriously and we will have a government that is purposeful and resolute,” he said.
The 59-year-old, who was the Solomon Islands’ foreign minister from 1995 to 1996 and again from July 2000 to June 2001, said a priority for his government will be constitutional reform.
Both Philip and Abana claimed before the vote that they had the necessary support of 26 MPs needed to form a new government after three weeks of intense horsetrading following the election.
However, in the tumultuous world of Solomons politics, with no deep-rooted party political system — which has led to 14 changes of prime minister in just 32 years since independence — it is not unusual for MPs to change allegiance.
The most notable switch in the lead-up to the latest vote was former prime minister Manasseh Sogavare, who joined the Abana camp just days before the election.
Sogavare was one of three prime ministers in the last four-year parliamentary term following the 2006 election.
The first-choice prime minister Snyder Rini lasted just eight days before he was forced to step down after his election ignited riots, which caused millions of US dollars of damage in Honiara.He was replaced by Sogavare, who was in charge for 19 months before he lost a no-confidence vote and Derek Sikua was appointed.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
RSS