They say a week is a long time in politics and how true that rings with the current state of affairs in Samoa following the conclusion of the April 9 General Election

The 25 constituency seats tie between the incumbent Human Rights Protection Party and Fa’atuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi, and the elevation of Gagaemauga No. 1 Member-elect Tuala Iosefo Ponifasio as a powerbroker, gradually emerged as official election results became available.

It opened the door to a political showdown, unseen and unheard of in the country’s 59 years of independence as everyone waited to hear from Tuala, and which party he will endorse in order to trigger the government formation process.

But an intervention by the Office of the Electoral Commission, four days after releasing the official election results, saw the declaration of another woman Member-elect through defeated H.R.P.P. candidate Aliimalemanu Alofa Tuuau.

Consequently, both the H.R.P.P. and the F.A.S.T. party now have 26 constituency seats each (including Aliimalemanu whose appointment came courtesy of the invoking of Article 44(1A) of Samoa’s Constitution which is now being questioned in court) to prolong the deadlock and plunge the country into a constitutional crisis. 

The O.E.C. declaration, which was approved by the Head of State and publicly announced at 9.34pm on Tuesday via the Commission’s official Facebook page, came out of left field to raise questions about the role of the O.E.C. in the government formation process and is now the subject of a Supreme Court proceeding.

But it is the details of the Gagaemauga No. 1 Member-elect’s meeting with the caretaker Prime Minister Tuilaepa Dr. Sa'ilele Malielegaoi – as the ruling party’s top brass negotiated with Tuala to get his support – which confirms what other former-government aligned politicians have been saying as to where the real epicentre of power of both the last Government and the last Parliament laid.

Tuala said Tuilaepa wasn’t receptive to his push for the new administration to review the last Government’s taxation policy targeting church ministers; contentious Electoral Act amendments and the widely condemned Land and Titles Court Acts.

"But he [Tuilaepa] said that the Government is stable and was not willing to review these laws,” said the Gagaemauga No. 1 Member-elect.

"It was clear to me that Tuilaepa does not want anyone else to lead the country but him. 

"Tuilaepa said to me that he was not willing to give up his seat. 

"Instead, he told me that the H.R.P.P. is prepared to wreck the results of the general election, and the party will ask my brother Laufou Alofipo Fa'amanu Manase (H.R.P.P.'s candidate who contested for the seat of Gagaemauga No.1. seat) to file a petition against me.

"That's when I realised that he (Tuilaepa) is a leader with so much hubris and a bully who tries to coerce people by threatening them.”

The revelations by Tuala in the Thursday 22 April 2021 edition of the Samoa Observer comes over a week after the newly-elected Parliamentarian boldly declared that he wanted to change the culture of Samoan politics that has been prevalent in the last Legislative Assembly.

His meetings and discussions in recent days – with the heads of the two political party camps headed by two of Samoa’s largest parties – confirms the challenges that lay ahead for him and his crusade to bring change.

But it shouldn’t dissuade him from pushing for change within the Parliament using the F.A.S.T. party platform, even from the Opposition bench, if the cards don’t fall in favour of the nine-month-old party after the election petitions.

It is a pity that the country’s longest serving Prime Minister didn’t seize the occasion to turn a new leaf, when the Independent Member-elect offered him the opportunity to reconsider the various dubious policies and legislation his Government promulgated at the expense of the people.

Coming on the back of a general election that decimated his party’s majority in the last Parliament – which now leaves his H.R.P.P. titering on the edge of getting consigned to the Opposition for the first time in decades – one would have expected him to acknowledge the voters in Samoa wanted change and his party’s loss of close to 20 seats in this year’s polls was a vote of no confidence in his leadership.

Nonetheless, the work of nation building continues and Tuala’s dreams of promoting a Legislative Assembly that embraces bipartisanship; is free of name calling and personalising of issues; and restores dignity and decorum through Samoan culture that is reflected in the Standing Orders is a direction that should benefit all citizens and the country going forward.

It will be up to all the Members of the Parliament of the XVII Legislative Assembly to make this happen, and if your heart is in the right place, we have no doubt it will happen.