Solomon Islanders go to the polls next week

Transcript

Solomon Islanders go to the polls on Wednesday next week to choose a new parliament from more than 400 candidates.

Our reporter Koroi Hawkins is in Honiara covering the elections and Don Wiseman asked him about the atmosphere in the capital five days out from the poll.

KOROI HAWKINS: There's sort of a mixed feeling in town, it's almost a sense of the calm before the storm, everything seems to be in a bit of a lull as people prepare and gear up for the elections. Coming into Honiara yesterday afternoon I came in with I believe with a couple of observers from the observer team from New Zealand as well so there's also people arriving in for the elections, people flying in specifically for this. And also on the streets there is that sense of excitement, there's banners of various candidates all along the market places and at night you also hear the rallies going on and the big trucks with the signage and people in the back cheering the names of their particular candidates. I went down to the wharves where ships have been leaving for the provinces. The Solomon Islands does not have the kind of voting system where you can just vote for any part of the country from the capital so people actually have to physically relocate to vote and that's been happening over the past few weeks and one boat was actually turned back last night going to Rennell and Bellona Province province because it was overloaded.

DON WISEMAN: How many boats are there that are involved in this sort of process of taking people back to their electorates?

KH: Yes there are quite a few Don and there are some converted cargo boats, there's some converted fishing boats, the one I was just talking about, is a converted fishing boat, that have just taken on passengers. Because it's such a huge movement of people to all of the provinces at once every shipping company and his dog is sort of trying to cash in on it and some are obviously chartered by the candidates that have better financial backing and others are just candidates paying for people's fares on the shipping routes that are going through. So there's going to be huge movement of people going through and back. And earlier last week I spoke with the Police Commissioner Frank Prendergast and he said they also have a safe boating operation which is usually for the Christmas period but has been brought in earlier for the election period because there's so many people going back to the provinces.