Pacific / Solomon Islands

Uncertainty over who new Solomons PM might be - Boyers

13:23 pm on 6 November 2017

The Solomon Islands opposition claims to have the numbers to oust the prime minister today.

Solomon Islands Manasseh Sogavare at the UN General Assembly, 2017. Photo: UNGA

Parliament will vote on a no-confidence motion against Manesseh Sogavare, who has been in power since 2014.

The vote follows a series of defections from his coalition late last month.

Twenty seven of the country's 50 MPs appeared united in support of the motion in local media reports at the weekend.

The head of the coalition's second biggest party, the Kadere Party, said there was a good chance that the government was about to change.

But Peter Boyers, a former Western Province MP, said it was difficult to know who would emerge as alternative prime minister

"There's quite a number of candidates there that would probably want to be prime minister. So I suppose once it becomes fluid that's the big question: how does one, in that sort of grouping, come to a collective position, since there's basically three separate identities in the opposition and supporting the opposition."