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| Book Review: DEMOCRACY AND CUSTOM IN SAMOA |
Political changes in Samoa
By Asofou So’o
Published by IPS Publications, Suva, 2008, 238 pp.
ISBN: 978-982-02-0390-7
Samoa (formerly Western Samoa) became an independent state in 1962 with a restricted form of democratic government combining Western institutional forms with traditional chiefly prerogative.
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Asofou So’o. Pic: Dev Nadkarni
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Only the titled heads (matai) of village-based clans can be members of the national parliament, and until 1991 only they could vote. Although there is now a universal adult franchise, village councils of matai still exert great influence on how people vote.
This is just one example of how the constitutional affirmation of individual citizens’ rights continues to be contradicted by the pressure of traditional local authority, sometimes with violent consequences.
So’o adeptly explains the political changes that have occurred since Samoa’s independence: the shift in the 1970s from consensus-based local decision-making for the selection of high-ranking matai as delegates to parliament, to hard-fought election contests in most constituencies, and, from 1980, the formation of political parties.
Political parties have often struggled to hold the loyalties of their members and election campaigning continues to be especially an affair of the individual candidates and their local factions.
High chiefly rank has long ceased to be a necessary qualification for success, both in the campaigning and in contests for leadership in parliament. As more matai of ability and wealth have entered the election fray, the costs of campaigning have risen, and elections are often followed by legal actions accusing victors of bribing voters.
Drawing a line between legitimate traditional gift-giving and illegal “treating” continues to be a problem to which So’o might well have given more attention.
He might also have discussed at greater length the astonishing scale on which the splitting of matai titles among many holders to increase voter numbers was occurring in the 1980s before the introduction of adult franchise.
Controversy over the harmful effects of this practice on the traditional status of matai encouraged the abolition of the exclusive matai franchise. But So’o’s central theme is the Samoan capacity for adapting traditional values and institutions to introduced modern institutions.
He gives us a compelling account of how the resources of each domain are exploited by ambitious leaders for advantage in the other.
Traditional matai titles, alliances, and rivalries continue to have great force in the behaviour of politicians, who also use their positions in parties, parliament, and cabinet as resources in pursuing ambitions and rivalries in the affairs of their villages and clans.
The book is highly recommended for its clear and well-organised exposition of the intricacies of contemporary Samoan political life.
—By Dr Robert Norton
Senior Research fellow
Department of Anthropology,
Macquarie University, Sydney
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