By Staff Writer
The Harmony Agreement designed to end political hostilities in Samoa after the 2021 general elections is starting to rot away in angry reactions of bitter betrayal and lack of good faith.
The opposition Human Right Protection Party is leading the outcry of protest.
“When our leader signed up to the agreement at the initiative by the Prime Minister, it was in good faith and in the spirit that everything ended here,” HRPP deputy leader Fonotoe Lauofo Meti recalled.
‘We never thought they would renegade on what the two leaders agreed to sign up to or that it would end up in Parliament.”
What Fonotoe was talking about was the bad turn of events with HRPP leader Tuilaepa Sailele and general Secretary MP Lealailepule Rimoni Aiafi, under investigation by the House Privileges Committee.
Under the Agreement, both sides were required to withdraw all election petitions against each other including contempt of court proceedings against several HRPP leaders.
The Agreement was brought before the court and the ruling upheld the spirit of harmony it was intended for.
While they found Tuilaepa and Lealailepule guilty of contempt they let them off without any penalty.
“As far as we’re concerned the court ruling brought everything to an end as it was the intention from the start,” Fonotoe continued.
“We withdrew in good faith court matters we brought against the PM, Cabinet Ministers Leatinu’u and La’auli and stopped all our investigations with the intentions to file more legal petitions.”
Where it all started to fall apart and starting turning into a sense of bitter betrayal, was when the Deputy PM filed an official complaint about the contempt of court convictions for Tuilaepa and Lealailepule.
What the complaint has succeeded so far in doing is re-opened the same hostilities the Agreement had originally hoped to overcome.
Lealailepule has already filed a complaint against the Deputy PM in a tit-for-ta reaction for the same reasons raised against himself and Tuilaepa for bringing disrepute to the dignity of Parliament.
Reported comments by the PM Fiame in the print media last week has added more rot to the sense of bitter betrayal in the HRPP for what they believe were her attempts to “water down” the Agreement.
Lealailepule was reluctant to add more comments to his party protests against the bad mouthing in the media of Tuilaepa over the Agreement by the PM.
“I don’t want to say too much about the comments by the PM to make our leader look bad because we are under review by the House Committee.”
What the party secretary did instead was to photocopy the Agreement and circulate copies widely through the media and the general public.
“Better to read about the Agreement because it says it all.”