SYDNEY, May 14, 2026 (BSS/AFP) - The Solomon Islands parliament will elect a new prime minister on Friday, with a reformer seeking better social services and a government minister known for foreign infrastructure deals among the frontrunners.

The Solomons has been one of Beijing's closest partners in the South Pacific since striking a secret security deal in 2022, and leadership changes in the strategically located archipelago are closely watched by Western diplomats.

Fifty lawmakers will vote on Friday morning for a new leader after prime minister Jeremiah Manele was ousted last week in a no-confidence vote.

One of the lawmakers who voted to remove him, former foreign minister Peter Shanel Agovaka, is the caretaker government's candidate for the next leader.

The opposition leader, Solomon Islands Democratic Party's Matthew Wale, and former deputy prime minister Manasseh Maelanga, are also vying for the job.

University of Hawaii associate professor Joseph Foukona said Wale was a reformer. Wale has previously pledged to boost education and fix hospitals that often run out of medicine.

Agovaka, one of the founder's of the previous coalition government's OUR Party, is likely to continue its policies, Foukuna told AFP.

Those policies have been dominated by infrastructure projects built by China after the Solomon Islands switched ties from Taiwan to Beijing in 2019.

Anouk Ride, associate professor at the Australian National University, said ordinary Solomon Islanders are struggling because of the global oil crisis.

"You can see this very visibly in the rural areas and also Honiara town where people are living without electricity and water supply," she told AFP.

"The geopolitical switch brought some large, very visible projects, notably building a national stadium, provincial airports. Those big-ticket projects haven't impacted the lives of people. Most people are reliant on fish and agriculture," she said.

A conflict in the Solomon Islands that ended 20 years ago destroyed many basic services, and there had been little improvement to health and education in rural villages since, she said.

Lawmakers spoke during last week's no-confidence vote against the lack of transparency in government dealings with foreign mining and logging companies, but there was a question over whether a new government would act, Ride said.

"We can expect further conditions for conflict in the future," she said.

Former Australian diplomat to the Solomon Islands, James Batley, said both Wale and Agovaka would likely continue to balance ties with China and Australia, a major aid donor.

"Either of them would be fairly pragmatic when it comes to international relations," he told AFP.

"Australia has not succeeded in rolling back China's security presence on Solomon Islands but it has not grown substantially," he said.