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Samoa’s political crisis ends and first female prime minister installed after court ruling | Samoa | The Guardian

Samoa’s months-long political crisis has been brought to a close and the Pacific nation has its first female prime minister after a ruling of the country’s court of appeal this afternoon.

The Samoan court of appeal ruled that the Faatuatua ile Atua Samoa ua Tasi (FAST) party was the official winner of the national election in April and the ad hoc swearing-in ceremony held by the party out the front of parliament, when FAST MPs were denied entry to the building, was legitimate.

Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, the leader of FAST, was confirmed by the court to be the country’s first female prime minister. She was previously the country’s deputy prime minister and last year defected from the Human Rights Protection party (HRPP), which had ruled Samoa for 39 years, to join the FAST party, which was founded in June 2020.

The court’s decision sees the official end of the reign of Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, who served as the country’s prime minister for more than 22 years and at the time of the election was the world’s second-longest serving prime minister.

In its ruling, the court said that the FAST party was “entitled to take power on the 24th May”, when the party held their ad-hoc swearing-in ceremony and said that “from this point, the court does not recognise [Tuilaepa’s caretaker government] as the government of the Independent State of Samoa, because of the fact that there is a new government”. …