The leader of Samoa’s FAST party acknowledged as Prime Minister-elect by regional leaders
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon took to X (Twitter) over the weekend to offer congratulations to Samoa’s Prime Minister-elect, leader of the Fa’atuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi (FAST Party), La’aulialemalietoa Leuatea Schmidt.
FAST won a majority of seats after the country went to the polls for a snap election at the end of August.
Prime Minister Luxon tweeted, “Congratulations Prime Minister-elect La’aulialemalietoa Leuatea Schmidt for your success in Samoa’s election. It was great to talk this afternoon about our countries’ enduring friendship.”
Luxon added that he looked forward to working with La’auli to build a secure and prosperous Pacific region.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters added his congratulations, “New Zealand looks forward to working with the new FAST government. Samoa and New Zealand share a special relationship, which we look forward to advancing in the period ahead.”
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has also extended his congratulations to the Prime Minister-elect.
The official results were released last Friday by the Commission of the Electoral Committee- Samoa.
All up, 187 candidates made up of 161 men and 26 women, were vying for a place in the 51 seat parliament. FAST secured 30 seats, while opposition party HRRP won 14, with Independents four and the Samoa Unity Party led by former Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mataafa secured three seats. Of the 90,403 votes that were cast, 89,831 were valid.
The declaration of elected members by the Head of State will be made on Monday..
The Chief Justice of Samoa issued a directive last week, that an electoral petition with all supporting affidavits must be filed with the Supreme Court within 10 working days after the day on which the Commissioner has publicly notified the result of the poll.
Counter petitions and all supporting affidavits are to be filed no later than five working days, beginning on the day after the date of service of the electoral petition.
