5 Feb 2014

Researcher predicts Solomons election to be most challenging yet

2:42 pm on 5 February 2014

An Australian National University reseacher says this year's Solomon Islands general election is likely to be its most challenging yet.

Terence Wood is a PhD student at the university's State Society and Governance in Melanesia Programme.

Mr Wood says Solomon Islands is facing some logistical challenges in the lead-up to the election as the country shifts to a new biometric electoral roll for voters.

"All of a sudden you need to have laptops and power sources for those laptops at every polling station, which as you can imagine in a country made up mostly of small islands is difficult logistically. They haven't even started collecting information for the roll yet and with an election scheduled sometime for the last quarter of this year things are already starting to look a little close."

Terence Wood says officials previously collated the electoral roll by visiting as many villages as possible but the new roll will require people to visit regional island centres to register.

Voting registration is scheduled to begin on March the 10th.