The Samoa Supreme Court has refused to allow an HRPP election winner, Tuisa Tasi Patea, in Sagaga 4 electoral constituency and the challenger, FAST's Tagaloatele Poloa, to withdraw their petitions.
The Samoa Observer reports the two parties had already advertised their intentions to withdraw the election petitions with Tuisa agreeing to resign from office to trigger a by-election.
But when the matter was called on Monday to formalise the withdrawal of the petitions, the court denied the application and set a hearing date for the case.
It will now be heard on July 27th.
Tuisa, who is a lawyer by profession, is accused of six counts of bribery and two counts of influencing voters during polling day.
In a counter petition, Tuisa claimed that the election runner-up, Tagaloatele, committed eight counts of bribery and treating.
HRPP has already lost six of its MPs in the electoral petition process.
This means it has 19 seats while the FAST party has 26.