February poll for Samoa

Press, 7 December 1981, Page 29

February poll for Samoa

PA Wellington Western Samoa's 12,000 matais, or family leaders, will go to the polls on February 27 next year to elect a government, the country’s head of State, Malietoa Tanumafili 11, has announced in a public notice published in newspapers in Apia. The elections, held every three years, will coincide with Samoa's twentieth year of independence from NewZealand. After a pre-independence United Nations plebiscite conducted on the basis of universal suffrage. Western Samoa's 150.000 people approved a constitution giving only matais the right the vote. Leading the government into the election will be

Tupuola Efi. aged 43, educated at Silverstream and Victoria University, who has been Prime Minister for the last six years. This will be the first election where a formalised opposition party will compete for votes. It is also the first election to be held after the damaging three-month Public Service strike earlier this year. The 30.000 Samoans resident in New Zealand, including several thousand matais, have already begun to feel election pressure as • fundraising drives get under way. Samoa has no special voting system and all matais who wish to vote have to return to the village in which their title came to vote.