By Mataeliga Pio Sioa
Talk is at the finishing line. By this time next Sunday all that is left is to vote. After all the hiss and the roar of election campaigning the moment of truth is about to be revealed.
Will the ruling HRPP return to power?
With 6 of the seats already confirmed in the 50-Member Parliament, they will only need 20 more to win.
HRPP dominates all the 43 constituencies left to be decided with its 106 candidates entered.
The number is more than double the 49 candidates by the nearest political rival FAST.
The Tautua Samoa, Samoa First and the independent candidates adds up to a mere 34 candidates.
Based on those statistics the better betting odds of winning this election is with the Government party.
FAST has been drumming up all the noises in this election build up but whether that is enough to take them all the way are not good betting odds.
Realistically the smaller parties including the Tautua Samoa have no chance of forming a new Government on their own.
The best they can hope for if any of their candidates goes through is to make up the winning number in a tight contest between the dominating parties.
The magic number when the winning candidates are official is 8. It is the number of candidates a political party must have to be officially recognised in Parliament as an opposition.
The last time we had an opposition party was after the 2011 general election when the Tautua Samoa had enough candidates to make it official.
The party collapsed after the 2016 general election to the point where many of the former key members trying to make a comeback for 2021 are doing so under the FAST banner.
So what are the chances of this new political party with former Deputy Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mataafa as leader, wresting power from her former boss Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi?
For a winning bet place your money on FAST forming a legitimate opposition party.
The Tautua Samoa has promised to join them to make up the numbers in coalition but it needs to be clarified if parties are allowed to merge in opposition and be officially recognised as such in Parliament.
The FAST election campaign machinery has attracted a lot of interest moreso on social media where they have drawn a large online support from the Samoan diaspora outside Samoa.
Many have reportedly donated big money to the local party with some allegedly going as far as calling up families at home to vote FAST.
All is good and well except these supporters are outside looking in and what they think they see may not be what they think it is.
What they want may not be what the people living in Samoa want.
All the trash talk about how Samoans in Samoa should feel obligated to follow what families in New Zealand or Australia want because of the remittance tala is sad. Heartbreaking really!
But will that be enough to coerce the voters in Samoa to vote for what they are told from families outside the country?
The election results will answer that.
Unfortunately if that is the case then it will open up a very big can of worms in future elections.
There will be some very big worms crawling out of that can when it opens and it is very doubtful they will be good worms.
What damages are they likely to wreck if they are not?
How about our independence as Samoans living in Samoa to decide what is good for us because we live here and we know what is good for us?
Will one of the worms that crawled out of the can be able to dangle us Samoans living in Samoa, as puppets to turn every-which-way to meet their demands from afar?
What about worms with criminal manipulative intentions?
Is Samoa the paradise they have been searching for to assert their influence so they can live and flourish in the splendor of life from the fruits of their criminal labour?
We currently have a court hearing pending on a conspiracy to assassinate the Prime Minister of Samoa with trigger money traced to Samoans living in Australia.
What does that say? Still believe the hate and the despite our very own is sowing on social media from outside Samoa is good for our peace and harmony?
Are remittances the price we pay for giving up our integrity and our independence as a free people living in what is supposed to be a country of free choice?
If the results of this election are to be influenced from outside Samoa then fear for whatever is waiting to rise from the far horizon.
Lord what was that about ‘thieves or robbers stealing into the night and would they not have stolen till they had enough?’
Will need some of your divine counsel with our general election, Lord.