‘Patience is the key’: Samoa’s PM-elect hopeful before ruling

Court ruling due on Monday could help resolve political crisis that saw Fiame Naomi Mata’afa sworn into office under a tent.

She is one of the Pacific Islands’ most experienced politicians, but Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, leader of the FAST (Fa’atuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi) Party, which won 26 of 51 parliamentary seats in Samoa’s election last month to claim victory, is facing the greatest battle of her 36 years in politics. The Polynesian island nation of about 199,000 people has been in unprecedented political deadlock since the polls on April 9. Many analysts saw FAST’s rise under Mata’afa, a former deputy prime minister, as the first sign in decades of a serious electoral challenge to the incumbent Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP), led by Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, who has been in office for 22 years.