To understand Samoa's political system, it is best to start at the village (nu'u) level where families (aiga) live on mostly customary land and in groupings with their neighbouring villages, make up an electorate that is predominantly forged by kinship relations. (An amendment in the Electoral Act and used for the first time in the recent elections has taken the genealogical element out and replaced by geographical borders).
Every aiga has chiefs (matai) who sit in the village chiefly council, and they make the rules that control peace and the use of resources within the village. The village chiefly council is the first level of politics, and government has to keep on side with this authority in case they need to utilize customary lands for public works and other purposes.
Samoa is the first Island nation in the Pacific to gain full political independence from colonial rule - first under Germany, then under New Zealand.
A protest movement in the late 1920's showed Samoa's rejection of colonial rule from outsiders and it culminated in a call for Samoa-mo-Samoa (Samoa for the Samoans).
The first parliament was elected by matai suffrage; only chiefs were allowed to vote, and it meant more than ninety percent of women and adult males did not vote. Then, (as is still the case now), only matai could run for parliament as candidates. There were no political parties during the first twenty years of Samoa's parliamentary democracy. The prime minister was often elected along chiefly alliances and was mostly from the rank of the high chiefly class or tama-a-aiga.
An industrial protest by public servants, the Public Services Association strike in 1981, ushered in party politics in Samoa. The Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP) was formed by supporters of those who were disenchanted with the government led by Tupuola Efi, who was to be appointed Head of State in later years under his high chiefly title of Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese.
HRPP won the elections in 1987 and held power continuously for more than four decades. Even after one of its own members, the minister for public works, Luagalau Levaula Kamu, was assassinated in 1999 and two of its senior members were charged and convicted of the murder, support for HRPP never waivered. HRPP was so popular that for most of the 21st Century, Samoa's parliament did not have an official opposition.
No poll could ever predict the result of the general election that was held on 9 April this year.
The newly-formed Faatuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi (FAST) political party was formed by a former whip of HRPP, former speaker and former cabinet minister Laauli Polataivao Schmidt, after he was ousted by then prime minister Tuilapea Sailele Malielegaoi. Laauli was later joined by former deputy HRPP leader and deputy prime minister Fiame Naomi Mata'afa.
The catalyst was a string of legislation that aimed at making the Lands and Titles Court independent of the other arms of the Judiciary, and a Bill to enable the leasing of customary lands, and limiting the number of chiefly titles an aiga could confer on its members.
FAST went on a Roadshow to promise the country a million Samoa dollars for each electorate, the abolition of the legislation that they argued was purely government meddling in the traditional affairs of the people.
The stand-off that followed the election was mainly caused by the Head of State calling for fresh elections after the result was leveled at 25 seats for HRPP and 25 for FAST, with an independent who would be Kingmaker and the rumour mill had already called his preference for FAST - that would give FAST a one-seat majority.
However, before the independent member made an announcement, the Head of State declared the election result even at 26 seats each. He had been advised by the electoral commission's office, that the requirement for 10% of members of parliament to be women had not been met by the 5 women who won their seats in the election.
In the end, the Court of Appeal ruled that the election result of 9 April was valid and ordered parliament to convene with FAST as government.
The result has seen the first female prime minister of Samoa, and HRPP losing power for the first time in four decades, and Tuilape Sailele Malielegaoi losing the position of prime minister for the first time in 22 years.
