The prime minister’s office in Apia, the capital of Samoa, which overlooks the harbour, has just been vacated by the man who held the job for 22 years.
The bookshelves are still empty, but the room is filled with bunches of flowers, sent by well-wishers keen to congratulate the new incumbent.
This week, after the most contentious election in the Pacific country’s history and three months of political turmoil and legal battles, Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, the first woman to hold the country’s most senior role, moved in.
In her first in-person interview with foreign media, Fiame told the Guardian there was “a lot of excitement” among women and girls after her victory in the April election.
“I was asked: ‘How important was it? Did I see my appointment as something important for women and girls?’ I said: ‘Of course it is.’ In the sense, if you see someone in that position, it makes it something that can be done. So, you know, for a very long time, women have not been able to hold these kinds of positions. So I’m very pleased then to have been able to. I suppose it’s role modelling, that it can be done.”
The milestone is particularly significant in the Pacific, which has the lowest rate of female representation in politics anywhere in the world, with just 6% of all MPs being women regionally. Three countries in the world have no women in parliament. All of them – Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and the Federated States of Micronesia – are in the Pacific.
Fiame is only the second woman to lead a Pacific Island country, after Hilda Heine, former president of the Marshall Islands.
Asked which world leader she most admires, Fiame pointed to another female leader. “I quite like the German lady: Merkel,” she said. “I think she’s an excellent leader, she’s very focused, she conducts herself, you know, is an ordinary citizen, she’s not one for pomp and ceremony.”