The call for a second Samoa general election has been described as "political engineering".
Samoa's Head of State Tuimalealiifano Va’aletoa Sualauvi II called for the election on the 21st May to end the deadlock following last month's election.
Both the ruling Human Rights Protection Party and opposing Fa’atuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi (FAST) Party are tied on 26 seats each.
Massey University political analyst Dr Christina Laalaai-Tausa says caretaker Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi.Tuilaepa is not willing to accept his defeat.
"The Head of State acts on the advice of the Prime Minister, and this is just another tactic of political engineering, where the caretaker PM refuses to let go of the power that they’ve held for a number of years and with it, his refusal to concede defeat."
Laalaai-Tausa says the next election will favour the Human Rights Protection Party.
“When we analysed the results of the elections last month, HRPP fielded more than one candidate for each constituency, which meant that a lot of the constituencies had three, four and up to five candidates from the same party.
“This next re-election, we will see the HRPP only fielding one candidate per constituency, which would mean that there will be a lot more competition and a lot more tightness in terms of how people will vote.
“If you put all the votes that were split between the four, five candidates from the HRPP party, it was actually more votes than the votes that went to the FAST candidate.”
Although she deems the process of the general election to be clear and fair, Laalaai-Tausa says it was the events afterwards went downhill.
“I guess the leader of the FAST party has always challenged and questioned that there’s no fairness in terms of a post-election process.
“Particularly when the Head of State signed a declaration for the additional seat for the HRPP party, which was unconstitutional and not done in the right way.”
But having another election won’t be easy to put together.
“The re-election comes with a lot of challenges, including financial challenges, not only for the resources going into the second election but the funding of travel for people to go back to their constituencies, particularly in Savaii to cast their votes,” says Laalaai-Tausa.
There’s also no guarantee voters in Samoa will want to return to the polls.
“What does this say about public confidence in terms of the electoral process that was in place before? That they have already voted and yet the caretaker government and now the Head of State refuse to recognise the will of the people, which does not look good for a democracy,” Laalaai-Tausa says.
Laalaai-Tausa says people should look out for any form of unrest in Samoa because of the call for a second election.
“Samoa has never gone through political uncertainty, but this re-election will be emotionally-charged so we will have to really look deep into what’s happening in Samoa and just manage the unrest and disquiet that has emerged since last night’s announcement.”