{"id":408792,"date":"2021-11-28T19:45:29","date_gmt":"2021-11-28T19:45:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/?p=66938"},"modified":"2021-11-28T19:45:29","modified_gmt":"2021-11-28T19:45:29","slug":"un-relationship-with-samoa-under-a-cloud-over-political-breaches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/11\/28\/un-relationship-with-samoa-under-a-cloud-over-political-breaches\/","title":{"rendered":"UN relationship with Samoa under a cloud over \u2018political breaches\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Johnny Blades<\/a>, RNZ Pacific<\/a> journalist<\/em><\/p>\n The United Nations has glaring problems in Samoa where the government is calling for the UN’s role in the country to be reviewed.<\/p>\n The most pressing immediate problem concerns the UN Resident Co-ordinator in Samoa, Simona Marinescu, and the local government’s allegation that she has interfered in domestic politics.<\/p>\n Samoa’s ruling Fa’atuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi (FAST) party has accused Marinescu of breaching UN principles of neutrality by actively working against the party during this year’s election.<\/p>\n The FAST claim partly relates to Marinescu’s involvement in the push to increase the number of women MPs in Samoa. The issue of a quota for women’s seats in Parliament became a central point of contention<\/a> in the drawn out impasse between the former ruling Human Rights Protection Party and FAST over election the election in April, which was won by FAST.<\/p>\n Marinescu, a former politician in Romania who took up the Apia post in early 2018, is a vocal advocate of women’s rights.<\/p>\n However, by pushing the women MPs issue during the testy initial post-election stages, she was accused of having favoured HRPP and its leader, Samoa’s long-time prime minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielagaoi, who aimed to prevent Fiame Naomi Mata’afa becoming the country’s first woman prime minister.<\/p>\n After months of court action over the election outcome, as well as rallies by HRPP supporters which FAST has accused Marinescu of helping to instigate, Fiame is now installed as prime minister — and her government has the knives out for the UN representative.<\/p>\n Push for law change<\/strong>\n
\nFAST party chairman deputy prime minister La’auli Leuatea Schmidt has also questioned Marinescu’s role in a reported recommendation to legalise abortion in Samoa made as part of a submission by the UN country office for Samoa’s recent Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council.<\/p>\n