Islands Business - Samoa: BREAD AND BUTTER ISSUES TO DETERMINE WHO WINS

PM Tuilaepa guns for third term in office.

Samisoni Pareti

Third time lucky? Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi (left) confident of retaining power.

Results of this month's general election in Samoa will be very close with the economy being the voters' overriding concern, says local political scientist, Unasa Dr Felise Va'a.

“For many voters who live in the villages, their main concern is putting bread on the table,” Unasa told ISLANDS BUSINESS.

“It's not about union bashing or human rights records. In fact most of the debate on these issues in Samoa in recent months have centred mostly in town amongst intellectuals.

“So long as voters see better roads, electricity, piped water and telephones, that to them are more important than who forms the government or who becomes prime minister.”

Unasa who lectures at the National University of Samoa believes some of the criticisms levelled against Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi and his ruling Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP) have been “unbalanced” and “inflated.”

Government's handling of the doctors' prolonged strike last year was sighted as one example. By coming down hard on the doctors, Unasa feels, it is a plus for HRPP, “not a minus”.

“People remember Margaret Thatcher and her anti-union policies.

“She not only won the elections, she also became very popular as a British prime minister.”

On the flip side, the university academic concedes that some criticisms levelled against the ruling party are valid.

Favouritism of party loyalists and its treatment of the Auditor General and discrimination of the opposition party are cases in point.

There's also the government's reaction to the Inter-Parliamentary Union intervention on parliamentary debate rules.

Newspaper polls in Samoa have consistently shown strong showings by the opposition's Samoa Democratic United Party. Its leader Le Mamea Ropati consistently beat Tuilaepa as the poll's most favourite choice for prime minister.

Tuilaepa, gunning for his third term in office, laughed off the poll results although his deputy and finance minister Misa Telefoni Retzlaff had attributed the result to the “natural urge for change” after HRPP's continuous 23 years in office.

Retzlaff refused to say whether he would bid for the prime ministership saying his priority would be to retain his seat at Falelatai and Samatau. “It is a bad habit to under-estimate rival candidates and presumptuous to talk about “other things” other than winning the March poll,” he said.