Where Lies the State? Sāmoa's 2021 Election and the Defeat of the Human Rights Protection Party

In 2021, Sāmoa witnessed its first change of government since the 1980s. The April election result entailed a narrow defeat for the governing Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP). This triggered a major constitutional crisis and a succession of legal battles over the 10 per cent quota for women in parliament and over the powers of the head of state, who had attempted to cancel the election. This paper examines the election outcome, how this was influenced by changing electoral laws, and why the newly formed Fa‘atuatua I Le Atua Samoa ua Tasi (FAST) party was able to mount such a strong challenge to the HRPP. The paper argues that the central issue during the campaign–the HRPP's reforms to reconfigure the Land and Titles Court–was not (as widely depicted) a dispute over ‘communal' versus ‘individual rights’ but rather one over two conflicting visions of centralized control.