By Mataeliga Pio Sioa
A treat to see our PM dancing the ‘siva taualuga’ to wrap up the Samoa Talks last week in American Samoa.
What better way to have fun and slip in much needed exercise on the side!
At the pace she has been moving in recent weeks it helps to be in good physical shape. Hopefully her fitness levels are up.
Her work schedule has been tight. A lot of traveling even with the short hop over to our family neighbours last week and back.
This week takes off like a rocket with New Zealand’s PM Ardern landing in Apia for more Treaty of Friendship talks.
The two ladies will probably have much to fill in on ways to improve on the treaty.
Behind all the smiles for public appearances sake are strength sapping work.
Fronting up to contentious issues and the stress involved is an energy draining exercise even if there are no body movements.
In official functions they are mostly seen walking up to a chair, sitting down or standing up, smiling and waving.
If there is any talking it is usually in low voices when they are not giving speeches – a strength sapping exercise when the adrenaline is pumping mad.
Maintaining a posture or a face can be stressful when you have issues niggling for your undivided attention.
Here is one example to showcase the point.
The former PM Tuilaepa is not too excited about the lack of full commitment by New Zealand to the Friendship Treaty.
How PM Ardern responds will be worth keeping an ear out for.
Tuilaepa has kicked the political rugby ball over to the NZ side and how the kiwi leader will run it back is going to be interesting.
Ardern will need some nifty side-stepping moves to avoid the tackles on matters involving Samoans.
NZ general elections are coming up and she knows that all too well.
NOT the time to be tackled on any sensitive issue that will jeopardise the cheering support of the large Samoan community vote.
It is where Tuilaepa is putting the pressure on the NZ leader to win favour for Samoa.
He has been in politics for too long he knows a few tricks or two. But that is not to say the NZ leader is not reading into what he is up to.
Politics is their chosen sport and the reason they are picked as team captains is they know the game and play it well.
But the pressure is all on PM Ardern. Tuilaepa has little to lose in comparison if his political ploys don’t work out.
Different story for the kiwi leader!
If her political party loses the general elections, she takes the brunt of the blame if they don’t have the Samoan community support card to play the winning hand.
Fiame is caught up in the middle of all this political fancy footing moves Tuilaepa has slipped in on the Ardern visit.
The two women have obviously become good friends but Fiame is unlikely to publicly chastised Tuilaepa for putting political pressure on her visiting kiwi pal.
To run Tuilaepa down for giving Arden a hard time is like personally giving him a box of bullets to load his political gun.
When he does come out blazing both she and Ardern will be ducking the same bullets she gifted.
These people are political heavyweights and that is just the way they move in their arena of operation.
The manipulation of events to win public approval is hard to tell sometimes with this crowd.
On some occasions they simply fly right past without us the public paying too much attention to where they ended up.
When and where they land is another story especially when the ripple effects sweep out.
For people like Tuilaepa and the two ladies, it is clearly a special calling.
What if those involved have no calling but are dragged in somehow? How did they end up with roles to play in political leadership?
We do have those mix-ups in life. Maybe it was designed to be so.
What is it again they say about spice and flavour to improve the taste?
Is Tuilaepa shipping our home politics outside our borders?
We are opening up our borders for international crossing so maybe that is just the way it is flowing or going to flow in these COVID 19 pandemic days.
Maybe he is just going with the flow.
Is it good or bad?
Wait for the ripple effects.