Political rights and civil liberties are generally respected in the Solomon Islands. There are weaknesses in the rule of law, unrest occasionally arises in the capital, and corruption remains a serious concern. Violence against women is also a significant problem.

• In general elections held in April, the ruling Ownership, Unity, and Responsibility (OUR) Party led the voting with 15 of 50 seats, but half of its cabinet ministers lost their races. Opposition leader Matthew Wale’s Democratic Party obtained 11 seats, Peter Kenilorea’s United Party secured 6, and the People First Party took 3. The remainder were divided among 11 independents and 4 single-seat parties. During the campaign, OUR Party accused the Electoral Commission of favoring the opposition by using slogans like “Make the Change” in its communications to encourage voter participation. Results were challenged on various grounds in half of the 50 constituencies, but none of the petitions had succeeded by year’s end.
• Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare stepped aside as OUR Party leader after the elections, allowing former Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele to replace him and make a successful bid for the premiership in May; Manele earned the support of 31 lawmakers. Wale, his main challenger, contested the legality of that election, claiming that the timeframe for nominations was insufficient. The High Court ruled in July that the nomination period had indeed failed to comply with the constitutionally required four-day period, but declined to invalidate the vote. In June, Parliament selected David Tiva Kapu, an Anglican priest, to serve as the country’s new governor-general. His candidacy was unopposed.
• Provincial elections were held at the same time as the national-level general elections. In one notable result, the former premier of Malaita, Daniel Suidani, regained his seat in the provincial legislature after being removed from power in a 2023 no-confidence vote backed by the central government; he was not reelected as premier, however. Suidani was later arrested in October and charged with organizing unlawful protests in 2021.
• In December, a bill that would have allowed for the convening of a constitutional assembly to discuss shifting the country to a more decentralized, federal system of government failed to obtain the required two-thirds majority in Parliament.
• Corruption remained a serious concern during the year. Ahead of the elections in April, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) identified Sogavare’s extensive real-estate holdings in Honiara, which appeared incongruent with his relatively modest government salary. In two other reports, the OCCRP examined costly infrastructure projects that allegedly benefited a powerful government minister, Bradley Tovosia. In July, the Solomon Islands branch of Transparency International warned that aid funds from China, through the Rural Sustainable Development Program, were being directed primarily to the constituencies of progovernment lawmakers, meaning they could serve as a means of influencing political choices in Beijing’s favor.

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For additional background information, see last year’s full report.