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Solomon Islands' long-delayed general election is being planned for April 17, three election officials told AFP on Monday, teeing up a vote that could bring deeper ties with Beijing.
Veteran pro-China prime minister Manasseh Sogavare is seeking reelection and is already campaigning on a platform of shifting alliances further from the West to China.
Electoral Commission communications advisor Philothea Paul said a formal announcement will be made in February, but she and two other officials confirmed the vote is eyed for April 17.
"The one-day event will cover the election of both provincial assembly and national parliament members," said Jeffery Sade Deve, a top Home Affairs and election official.
It is the first public confirmation of an election that was due to be held in 2023.
The vote was controversially delayed after Sogavare claimed it was impossible to hold elections until after the Solomon Islands hosted November-December's Pacific Games.
Critics have accused the prime minister and his party of corruption and using China's political and economic support to secure his grip on power ahead of the vote.
The three-time prime minister has used his most recent stint in office to pivot hard toward China -- signing a secretive security pact with Beijing and inviting Chinese police deployments to the islands.
Sogavare has dismissed the criticism as "fabricated lies by agents of Western powers".
He has touted Chinese investment as a means of breaking his country's dependence on Western aid.
The United States and Australia fear the security pact could give China a military foothold at a strategic crossroads in the South Pacific.
Opposition leader Matthew Wale has called for the government to be more transparent in its dealings with China.
Last November, he told AFP that the decision to sign the security pact and to keep its contents secret was "a terrible judgement by the prime minister."
Wale accused Sogavare of delaying the election out of fear of losing.
Solomon Islands' long-delayed general election is being planned for April 17, three election officials told AFP on Monday, teeing up a vote that could bring deeper ties with Beijing.
