NEWCASTLE, Australia (AP) — Samoa will head to the polls on Aug. 29, a half-year earlier than expected, after Prime Minister Fiamē Naomi Mata’afa’s government collapsed following a budget defeat in parliament late last month.
Fiamē, who became the South Pacific island nation’s first female prime minister in 2021 and ended four decades of Human Rights Protection Party rule, now faces a three-way political battle that has ramifications far beyond Samoa.
The snap election comes at a time of heightened geopolitical interest in the South Pacific, with Samoa viewed as a strategic player in the growing contest for regional influence between China and traditional partners like Australia and the United States.
Climate change is also seen as an existential threat for the Samoan archipelago, which has a population of 200,000 people, and is among the world’s most imperiled by rising seas.
Fiamē’s FAST government fractured earlier this year after she fired party chairman La’auli Leuatea Polataivao from the cabinet over criminal charges. The move triggered a party split.
Though Fiamē survived two no-confidence votes, a combined effort by HRPP and FAST defectors to block her budget forced the early election.
Fiamē now leads the newly formed Samoa Uniting Party, facing off against her former boss Tuila’epa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi’s HRPP and La’auli’s rebranded FAST.
The Head of State, Tuimalealiifano Sualauvi Vaaletoa II, formally announced the election date on Tuesday, after the country’s Supreme Court rejected a bid to allow more time for preparations.
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