A senior Australian minister on Wednesday suggested that China had deliberately announced its security pact with the Solomon Islands during an election campaign to undermine her government’s chances of reelection.

Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews’ accusation is consistent with her conservative Liberal Party’s argument that Beijing wants the center-left Labor Party to win the May 21 election because Labor lawmakers were less likely to stand up to Chinese economic coercion.

Labor has described the government’s inability to prevent the deal announced by the Chinese and Solomons governments last week as Australia’s biggest foreign policy failure in the Pacific since World War II.