Samoa's longest-serving Attorney General and now legal representative for the FAST party says the country is in a constitutional crisis.
Taulapapa Brenda Heather, who served as Attorney General from 1997 to 2006, said it became a crisis when the Electoral Commission added a sixth woman to parliament in a move it said was to meet the country's gender quota.
"It's been compounded by then the Head of State calling for fresh elections and purporting to void or revoke the electoral results from the actual election on April 9," Taulapapa said.
"I think it's fair to say we are deeply in a constitutional crisis right now and we are looking to the judicial branch of government - the independent judiciary of the Independent State of Samoa - to guide us out of it."
A week ago, Samoa's Head of State ordered voters back to the polls - next Friday - after last month's national election resulted in a deadlock between to the two main parties.
The FAST party is challenging the decision, stating it was premature, illegal and unconstitutional.
That case is set to be argued in court on Thursday, but the party also mounted legal challenge centred on the Electoral Commission's decision to add a sixth woman to parliament.
A ruling on that was expected yesterday - but Samoans now have to wait another week for that decision
Taulapapa said if the court ruled the sixth woman should not have been appointed, it will return to the election result of 26 members to FAST and 25 to HRPP.
"The justification for calling fresh elections, falls away.
"But we are saying there is no power for the Head of State to do that and certainly no power for the Head of State to set aside free and fair elections that happened on April 9," Taulapapa said.
Asked at what point would she expect Samoa's neighbours, including Australia, to step in, Taulapapa said it was about whether they saw the actions of a caretaker government to undermine the results of a free election as appropriate behaviour.
"Whether that's a member of the UN or whether that's a member of the [Pacific Island] Forum - on every level where there's a bilateral development partner that's appropriate behaviour given there's huge support provided by the international organisations and also by our bilateral partners like Australia and New Zealand and the United Kingdom that support good governance and democracy in our country over the last 60 years."
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