By Mataeliga Pio Sioa
Our election roller coaster ride is heading for more drama or trauma, whichever takes your fancy, so hold on even tighter.
If the social media lashing the Electoral Commissioner and his slaving staff received for their painstaking count is any indication, it will get even worse with what is coming up.
The pace of anticipation shifts to an even faster speed gear, as the balance of power races down the final stretch, to our upturned Wok Power House at Mulinu’u.
With the count out of the way the full focus is now on independent MP Tuala Iosefo Ponifasio.
Is it Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi or Fiame Naomi Mataafa he will trust his deciding vote with?
The dream for every independent candidate who runs in a general election is to be where MP Tuala is at right now.
Many will envy the power he wields with his vote and right now he is everyone’s darling. But wait until he casts his vote.
Half the country will sing his praises to Heaven and back. The other half will bundle him off to Hell and keep him there until the fires of inferno dies out.
Tuala is a lawyer and now a politician so he knows the ‘do or damn’ lurking at the finishing line for his arrival.
If you love Tuala send him your prayers. He will need all the comfort he can store to keep up his strength when the Gates of Hate opens up on social media.
He has to balance the pathway of extremes he will walk of love and hate in his political career.
Be strong brother.
While we struggle to recover from the Tuala ride the gears shift again. This time the race is towards that sprawling two-storey building at Mulinu’u we call the Court House.
Election petition time! How the court rules could spark another election run to decide the balance of power.
Will the court ruling boot out the already elected and send the voters back to the bi-election polling booths? We will have to wait for that.
If it does turnout to be the case then off we go again.
From what we are hearing from Fiame as the FAST leader marshaling her candidates for a petition run, it will be intense.
PM Tuilaepa and his HRPP people are not likely to be sitting idle either, twiddling their thumbs.
Indeed we have another election battlefront looming in the coming weeks or months.
The full route is from the Court House to the polling booths for bi-elections and then back to our Wok Power House.
Hopefully we will finally settle our balance of power issues for the last time and more importantly sooner.
Some of us have families to raise, businesses to run and a country that needs to return to normal again.
The sooner we are back to our regular ways of life the better it is for our body organs to be at peace again.
Too much excitement is not good for many of those poor, overworked body parts.
After we are all rested up into the middle of this political 5-year term, we should be recovered enough to start sorting out all the lose ends from this general elections.
From what we were put through as voters there are a few major ends that will have to be tied tight. Very very tight.
The influence of the social media and the Samoan diaspora are on top of the priority list.
Our national elections have never been disrupted as seriously as it was by these outside influences in all our years of independence.
We the voters of Samoa have to decide before the next general election falls due what to do with them.
Our safety and well-being during a very sensitive period of national decision making must never be left exposed again as it was with this general elections.
We also have some shameful internal issues to smooth out.
The direct influence of religion into the politics of state should be condemned in the most severe terms.
Voters should be allowed their God given freedom to make their own choices rather than be coerced by church ministers who tell them who to vote for.
These are the main causes of disruption that brought so much unnecessary grief and stress at a difficult time in our decision making process as voters.
If we have to fix all that the only people we should turn to is ourselves.
Our vote our decision. Everyone else bugger off.
Sorry Lord for sounding aggressive on Your day. Thank you for your forgiveness and never-ending love.