More than three months after winning an election that sparked a constitutional crisis, Samoa’s first female prime minister was yesterday eventually able to take office.
A smiling Fiame Naomi Mata’afa sat in the chair her predecessor had been reluctant to relinquish after 22 years in power. She held her first Cabinet meeting, with members of her Faith in the One God of Samoa (FAST) party dressed in the distinctive red clothes that party members and supporters often wear.
Mata’afa, 64, said they were ready to begin their work.
Photo: AFP / The FAST Party Samoa
That could include a reset of the nation’s relationship with China. On the campaign trail, Mata’afa had pledged to stop a US$100 million port development backed by Beijing, calling the project excessive for a nation that is already heavily in debt to China.
After a knife-edge election result in April, Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi refused to concede defeat, despite several court rulings that went against him.
He had two powerful allies in the nation’s head of state and the speaker, who were able to stall the transfer of power.
A bizarre scene played out in May when Mata’afa and her FAST party were locked out of the Samoan Legislative Assembly, with Malielegaoi saying he was still in charge. Mata’afa and her party members took oaths and appointed ministers in a ceremony held under a tent in front of the locked Legislative Assembly.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Mata’afa said that day was charged with emotion.
“It could have gone pear-shaped, but we were able to keep calm,” she said. “We could have stormed the building and knocked down the doors, like in Washington DC, but we just sat and sang a few hymns, sang a prayer.”
Last week, the nation’s top court ruled the unusual swearing-in ceremony that day had been constitutional, and Malielegaoi finally conceded. Mata’afa had previously served as his deputy.
She said in the interview that she resigned after becoming concerned that Malielegaoi and fellow lawmakers had gone “off the rails” by trying to politically intervene in the nation’s court system and judiciary.
“It was a classic case of power and corruption,” Mata’afa said. “We were slipping away from the rule of law, and I didn’t like that, but most of party were happy to go along with it.”
Mata’afa’s election win is seen as a milestone not only for Samoa, which is conservative and Christian, but also for the South Pacific, which has had few female leaders.
Mata’afa said she did not think her gender was a big issue in the election, and that her role in the traditional chiefly system was perhaps more important to voters, but she hoped that she might be a positive role model for Pacific women in other fields, showing what they could achieve.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS