VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare shake hands at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Jul 10, 2023. (File photo: Reuters/cnsphoto) - 

Voinews, SYDNEY - Solomon Islands is expected to next week call a national election for April, with China security ties emerging as a key issue as political parties launch campaigns in the Pacific Islands nation.

Quoted from CNA news, Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare switched diplomatic ties from Taiwan to China soon after the 2019 election that brought him to power, later forging a security pact with Beijing that alarmed Washington and Canberra, and set off a race for influence in the strategically located Pacific Islands.

A prominent opposition party figure, the United Party's Peter Kenilorea, said he wanted the China security pact reviewed, and would also seek to re-establish diplomatic ties with Taiwan, the Solomon Star newspaper reported on Wednesday (Feb 14).

Opposition leader Matthew Wale said at a campaign launch for a coalition of democratic parties on Wednesday that a referendum could be held to decide the country's relationship with China.

"China is a superpower both militarily and economically, and there is much also to be gained from a relationship with China ... We need to see what our national interest is," Wale said at the livestreamed event.

He criticised Sogavare for not consulting the provinces before switching ties to China, which led to the largest province, Malaita, refusing to cooperate with Beijing for several years.

"The possibility of a referendum is a very real possibility to decide it once and for all," Wale said.

At his campaign launch, Sogavare pointed to the Pacific Games held in Honiara, with stadiums donated by China, as a major achievement.

His party pledged to "strengthen the relationship with China through a 'look North' foreign policy while nurturing ties with other traditional partners such as Australia", a statement said.

The election will officially be called by the country's governor-general on Feb 20.

Wale said Apr 17, expected to be the polling date, was "a day for accountability", after Sogavare had "prioritised Pacific Games over medicines".

Honiara's operating theatres leaked in the rain and patients slept on the floor at the hospital, he said.

In his campaign speech, Wale was critical of "elite capture".

"We have a government that is not controlled by Solomon Islanders ... A government that receives money to make sure that the status quo continues," he said.

Wale did not name China in the speech, but the Prime Minister's Office previously confirmed China had provided US$2.49 million for a fund spent at Sogavare's discretion, with payments made to 39 out of 50 lawmakers.

Sogavare's office has previously rejected claims the money was used to maintain power//(CNA-VOI)

Farmers gather along a highway blocked by police as they try to march towards India's capital (Photo: AFP/Shammi MEHRA) - 

Voinews, India - Indian riot police fired tear gas on Wednesday (Feb 14) at columns of farmers on tractors seeking to breach heavily guarded roadblocks and march on the capital to demand guaranteed crop prices.

Farmers in India this week launched the "Delhi Chalo", or "March to Delhi", in an echo of January 2021, when they broke through barriers and rolled into New Delhi on Republic Day during a then year-long protest.

But this time around, the lines of hundreds of tractors have been stalled by fearsome barricades of concrete blocks and lines of razor wire.

Quoted from CNA news, the farmers are demanding a law to fix a minimum price for their crops, in addition to a clutch of other concessions including waiving loans.

Tear gas was fired at Shambhu, about 200km north of the capital on the border between Punjab and Haryana states where the main group of farmers has been stopped, AFP reporters at the scene said.

"The police are treating us as if we have come from an enemy country," said Mohan Singh, a 65-year-old farmer from Punjab's Kapurthala district, some 415km by road from Delhi.

"All we want to do is go to Delhi and ask for our rights, but more than 150 of us have been injured."

Haryana state police said in a statement on Tuesday night that "heavy stones" were hurled at police and 24 officers had been hurt.

Farmers in India have political influence due to their sheer numbers, and the renewed protests come ahead of national elections likely to begin in April.

Two-thirds of India's 1.4 billion people draw their livelihood from agriculture, accounting for nearly a fifth of the country's GDP, according to government figures.

After first deploying tear gas on Tuesday, police fired fresh barrages on Wednesday, including dropping canisters from the air by drone as tractor-driving farmers tried to open the road by dragging barricades away.

"We are just waiting for the green signal from our leaders," said Santokh Singh, 65, from Ludhiana in Punjab. "Once that comes, we will break all the barriers."

But farm union leaders used microphones to call for restraint from supporters.

"We will win this battle and go to Delhi," one of them shouted. "But we cannot afford to get carried away."//(CNA-VOI)