'Australia has colonised Honiara with an army of highly paid experts; prostitution has turned into a boom industry, while house prices have gone through the roof.'


As the Solomon Islands heads into a general election next month, it is more than just a case of its people deciding their future. The whole concept of Pacific regional intervention is on the line. Or at least, the idea of the Australian-led intervention.

The ethnic crisis which saw Malaitans fight over the plains of Guadalcanal has long past since the Australian-led Pacific force came ashore on Red Beach in 2003 and imposed a successful peace.

Key rebel figures, including the murderous Harold Keke, have been locked up and tried by standard Western process. The local police-now firmly under Australian control-are performing to a solid standard.

But the big imponderable-the elephant in the lounge that nobody can see-is the simple democratic process itself.

While a succession of cabinet ministers and politicians have faced arrest over their behaviour during the unrest, the Prime Minister, Sir Allen Kemakeza, whose behaviour over the now infamous compensation money, has remained untouched.

That's not to say he is particularly guilty of anything; even in the Solomon Islands people are entitled to the right of innocence until proven otherwise.

As it happens and perhaps fittingly, Kemakeza and the cast of characters who have sat in parliament in Honiara for the last five years will now face the ultimate trial at the hands of the long suffering voters.

On past voting trends, it will not be surprising if a high percentage of the current Solomon Islands politicians find themselves looking for jobs.

In the every-man-for-himself world of politics across the Pacific, voters seldomly feel inclined to reward incumbents.

Regionally, the more significant aspect of the ballot will be the measurement by Solomons voters of the now celebrated regional peacekeeping model.

It was a pioneering work and clearly it bought peace to the troubled province. But coming up to its third anniversary this year, it is easy to see its imperfections.

It was almost too easy to send in the soldiers and police-predominantly Australian, New Zealand and Fijian-and worry about it later. The overriding motive, after all, was that of Australia's John Howard, who in his US Deputy Sheriff phase, wanted to show Washington he could keep order in his backyard. He had ignored appeals from Solomon Islanders and only acted when Australian-owned banks protested that anarchy was bad for business.

The lack of an exit strategy has been all too apparent and the Solomon Islands has become a 21st century colony-mostly a colony of Canberra but also a vassal of regionalism. For some, it has been a nightmare with the Solomons having to host a succession of neo-colonial governors from Howard through to Helen Clark to Anote Tong, all anxious to see how their boys and girls were doing in straightening out Solomon Islanders.

Australia has colonised Honiara with an army of highly paid experts; prostitution has turned into a boom industry, while house prices have gone through the roof.

The craziness reached a point when Australian bureaucrats would not buy Solomon Islands bananas. Instead, they imported Queensland bananas.

So this general election is almost a kind of independence referendum, second time around. It is not clear though whether the Australians will leave this year. But Solomon Islands' voters will be right in probing election candidates over their stand on the sovereignty of the Hapi Isles.

All that said, however, one has to salute the notion of democracy in troubled times. It has been all too easy in the occasionally troubled South Pacific to think of one-person-one-vote as a pesky foreign flower that should be rooted out.

Few ordinary voters have said that; it is a complaint of the vested interest politicians. Solomon Islanders-spread over the archipelago and through the tiny villages-are finally getting to have a say about their future-something until now has been settled in Canberra, Wellington, Washington and Suva. May they vote well.