General Elections, 19 November 2014 

Floods, April 2014  

In April 2014, devastating floods from heavy downpour inundated Honiara, the capital and largest city of Solomon Islands (Buchanan 2014; ABC 2014a). The flash flooding that began on 3 April 2014 claimed 23 lives and left 9,000 civilians homeless (Disasterscharter.org 2024; ABC 2014a). Moreover, the disastrous floods left half of the capital without access to water for weeks (ABC 2014a). Much of the flooding came when the Mataniko River that runs through Honiara burst its banks and led to destruction in Tuvaruhu, Vara Creek Koa Hill, Number 3 and Mamanawata (Buchanan 2014).   

Impact on the electoral process  

Since newly reformed voter registration for 2014’s general election was scheduled for April of that year, biometric voter registration was the part of the electoral process most impacted by the floods (ABC 2014b); the general election itself proceeded on schedule (IPU 2024). In response to the floods, the Solomon Islands Electoral Commission extended the biometric voter registration period by two weeks(Solomon Times 2014).  

Of the 287,565 voters who had undertaken biometric registration there was a turnout of 89.93 per cent (IPU 2024; International IDEA n.d.). This represented a very significant increase on 2010 when turnout was 52.36 per cent (International IDEA n.d.). The record high turnout came after changes also in the country’s security (ABC 2014c), electoral and party system.