Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has moved to delay elections citing the build-up to the Pacific Games in November 2023 as a reason.
The move comes after South Pacific expert Cleo Paskal warned in March that Sogavare—who has cultivated deep ties with Beijing—could be emboldened to tighten control over the Pacific nation, a key goal of the Chinese Communist Party’s “entropic warfare.”
On Aug. 8, the Sogavare government submitted the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 2022 to Parliament, which aims to delay the nation’s elections by six months until Dec. 31, 2023. Originally parliament was supposed to be dissolved in May 2023. An election must normally be held within four months of parliament’s dissolution.
In July, the prime minister’s office claimed the country did not have the resources to run an election and host the Pacific Games at the same time.
In response to Sogavare’s moves, opposition leader Matthew Wale said: “So it’s happening.”
While U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said, the United States and Pacific nations would “watch very carefully to see what happens here.”
Beijing’s Entropic Warfare Underway
In March, Sogavare signed a secret security pact with Beijing that will pave the way for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to station troops, weapons, and naval ships in the region.However, the vote failed after opposing MPs simply did not show up, which meant the Parliament did not have a quorum to meet.
Yet the situation in Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands is indicative of Beijing’s “entropic warfare” strategy where democratic institutions are being worn down.
The strategy plays out with the CCP deploying all means possible to destabilise the political, media, and legal institutions of a target nation, with the ultimate goal of creating a “new order” centred on its own interests.
“That process of creating instability and fragmentation can be described as creating a state of ‘entropy’—of political, social, and economic entropy—where things start to just break down. And in that state of disorder, China can create a new order with itself and its proxies at the centre.”