SPEAKING during last week’s debate on the question of debate that parliament resolves into a committee of the whole house to consider the Solomon Islands national anti-corruption strategy, Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare spoke strongly about election.

Mr Sogavare stated that people’s choices in the election of candidates for seats in parliament must be directed by the best policies of the political party by which the candidate represents and not on how much the candidate spends in terms of RCDF over the course of 4yrs.

“It is worthy of noting that the concern about corruption and as far as election is concerned begins on how winning candidates secure their seats,” he said.

He also said that if corruptive actions and strategies were used then it is logical to conclude that the member will continue to use corruptive strategies to maintain the support of his votes.

The Prime Minister emphasized that it is important that the electoral system is appropriately reformed so that parliament is rid of the pressures that disturbs it’s membership from concentrating on national issues as opposed to the need to maintain the attitude of dependency on the Member of Parliament.

He added that such is clearly unsustainable as it is placing the Member of Parliament in a position that he or she becomes vulnerable to corruption.

“If we can achieve that objective then we are doing justice to the future of development of our country. Bad policies have repeatedly blamed for the sluggish development of our country. On the floor of this very parliament let us not cry over that but agree to do something about it,” he said.

Mr Sogavare said that all the objectives of the reform will be to revisit the intention of the policy to make political parties and their development policies as the main focus the election system.

“The safeguards intended under this strategy are designed to assist the sitting member of parliament to do the right thing and so common sense suggests that we should have no difficulty supporting such a framework,” he said.