By Sally Andrews
Under a new coalition government, the Pacific state has a chance to adopt much-needed reforms.
Under the leadership of a newly elected coalition government, many Solomon Islanders hold hopes that 2015 will emerge as a period of unprecedented reform. As the legislature prepares to debate potential frameworks for economic stimulus and the consolidation of law and order, international attention will be concentrating on whether the state can continue to chip away at its former reputation as the Pacific “failing state (PDF).”
Whilst commonly remembered as the site of the first Allied push back against Japanese occupation in the bloody Battle of Guadalcanal (1943-1943), the Solomon Islands’ political trajectory since its 1978 independence from Britain has been marred by corruption, dysfunction, and civil unrest. Tensions over increased rates of inter-island migration in the 1990s, alongside continued resentment over colonial land appropriations, led to outbreaks of violence within Guadalcanal and the capital Honiara. Armed militias emerged from both the Guadalcanal and Malaita ethnic groups, turning the capital into a war zone and causing businesses, schools and local governance institutions to grind to a halt.
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