(Reuters) -Samoa held a national election on Friday with the Pacific Island nation’s first female prime minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa seeking to return to office in a race against the long-serving leader she unseated in 2021, and her former party.
Polls closed at 3 p.m. on Friday (0200 GMT) after around 100,000 voters cast ballots to elect 50 lawmakers to parliament.
Fiame was one of the Pacific Islands’ few female leaders, and became known for her sceptical stance on China’s security ambitions in the region, and support for island nations to unite to resist pressure from outside powers.
She raised the international profile of the nation of 200,000 people by hosting the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting last year, focused on the impact of climate change in the Pacific.
Fiame became Samoa’s first woman leader in 2021, winning an election that unseated the incumbent Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi after 22 years.
Tuilaepa refused to accept the 2021 result for several months, stepping down only after the court backed Fiame’s makeshift swearing-in ceremony, held in a tent after she was locked out of parliament.
Fiame asked for parliament to be dissolved in June after being unable to gain enough support to pass budget legislation. She was expelled from her political party, Fa’atuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi (FAST), in January in a factional dispute.
FAST led by La’aulialemalietoa Leuatea Polata’ivao Schmidt, Fiame’s new Samoa United Party, and Tuilaepa’s Human Rights Protection Party (HRRP) are the main contenders to form government.
Samoa United Party is fielding candidates in around half of the seats, electoral commission records showed.
In Apia, the Samoan capital, residents told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation they were looking forward to political stability, and wanted the next government to focus on the economy and jobs.
(Reporting by Kirsty Needham in Sydney; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
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