ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief historical background and a description of major events in Solomon Islands. It also provides basic political, economic, and social data arranged in the following categories: polity, economy, population, purchasing power parities, life expectancy, ethnic groups, capital, political rights, civil liberties, and status. The chapter discusses the progress and decline of political rights and civil liberties in Solomon Islands. Citizens of the Solomon Islands can change their government democratically. Under the 1977 constitution, the 50-member unicameral parliament is directly elected for a four-year term. The Solomon Islands, a twin chain of islands stretching nearly 900 miles in the western Pacific, became a British protectorate in the late 1800s and an independent member of the Commonwealth in 1978. Politics in this parliamentary system is characterized by frequently shifting partisan loyalties. In August 1997, Bartholomew Ulufa'alu, head of the Alliance for Change and its dominant Solomon Islands Liberal Party, was elected prime minister.
