16 Facts About Bartholomew Ulufa'alu

Bartholomew Ulufa'alu CMG was the prime minister of Solomon Islands from 27 August 1997 to 30 June 2000.

Bartholomew Ulufa'alu completed his schooling at Aruligo Secondary School and received a Bachelor of Economics from The University of Papua New Guinea, during which time he was President of the UPNG Students' Union.

Bartholomew Ulufa'alu founded the Solomon Islands General Workers' Union and founded and led the union-affiliated National Democratic Party in 1975.

Bartholomew Ulufa'alu was appointed the first ever Leader of the Official Opposition.

Bartholomew Ulufa'alu is generally regarded as having performed well as Finance Minister and perhaps because this distracted him from attending to his constituency, he was defeated in 1984.

Bartholomew Ulufa'alu was re-elected in 1989 and joined the opposition group, but in 1990, he resigned from parliament after accepting an offer from Prime Minister Mamaloni of a well-paid two-year consultancy with the Prime Minister's Office.

Bartholomew Ulufa'alu was able to muster a slender majority to defeat veteran politician Solomon Mamaloni for the position of prime minister in 1997.

Bartholomew Ulufa'alu was faced with difficult economic problems: debts were high, government spending was out of control, and logging was occurring at an unsustainable rate.

Bartholomew Ulufa'alu set about implementing much-needed reforms to improve government financial management and cut down on corruption; however, he was constantly harassed by motions of no confidence, the last of which he only won in a tied vote.

The second half of the Bartholomew Ulufa'alu government was overwhelmed by the internal conflict commonly known as the 'Ethnic Tensions'.

The Bartholomew Ulufa'alu government struggled to respond to the complexities of this evolving conflict.

Bartholomew Ulufa'alu requested assistance from Australia and New Zealand in 1999 but this was rejected.

Bartholomew Ulufa'alu threw his support behind Rini and was rewarded with the post of Minister for Commerce.

Bartholomew Ulufa'alu suffered from diabetes and as a result, he had a leg amputated in 2004 and had developed partial blindness.

Bartholomew Ulufa'alu seemed to make a good recovery and was back in his role as finance minister before his dismissal.

Bartholomew Ulufa'alu's illness returned and he died on 25 May 2007.