Last year, the opposition in Samoa began organising themselves into a new political party. The government responded by throwing them out of Parliament, declaring their seats vacant and forcing by-elections. On Saturday, those by-elections were held, and the result was a massive defeat for the government, with two of the three seats in contention returning their opposition members (one of them unopposed). The HRPP was expecting to crush the opposition and maintain their record of winning every by-election; instead, they lost in one seat, and could not even find a candidate in another.
It seems the Samoan public is finally tiring of the HRPP's undemocratic actions. Hopefully the HRPP will get the message, and stop trying to turn Samoa into a one-party state.
