- Va'ai Kolone
Va'ai Kolone (
11 November 1911 -20 April 2001 ) was aSamoa n politician, prime minister, and founder of theHuman Rights Protection Party . He served asPrime Minister of Samoa twice, first between13 April and18 September 1982 , and then from30 December 1985 until8 April 1988 .Kolone was first elected to the Fono in 1967. In 1979 together with
Tofilau Eti Alesana he founded theHuman Rights Protection Party to oppose the government of Tupuola Efi. The HRPP won 24 seats in the 1982 election, and Kolone was appointed Prime Minister. However, an election petition stripped him of his seat shortly afterwards due to bribery and he was forced to resign [ [http://epress.anu.edu.au/ssgm/global_gov/mobile_devices/ch18.html More Than 20 Years of Political Stability in Samoa under the Human Rights Protection Party] , Asofou So’o, [http://epress.anu.edu.au/ssgm/global_gov/mobile_devices/index.html "Globalisation and Governance in the Pacific Islands"] ] . Tupuola Efi was appointed Prime Minister and served until Kolone regained his seat in the subsequent by-election. However in the meantimeTofilau Eti Alesana had been elected leader of the HRPP and served as Prime Minister for the rest of the parliamentary term.Kolone resigned from the HRPP after failing to regain the party leadership after the 1985 election ["Ibid."] . However in late 1985 11 HRPP MPs defected to form a coalition government with the then-opposition Christian Democratic Party. Kolone was elected Prime Minister on 30 December, with Efi as his deputy. The coalition was later formalised as the
Samoan National Development Party [Stephanie Lawson, "Tradition Versus Democracy in the South Pacific: Fiji, Tonga and Western Samoa", p. 148] . He subsequently led the SNDP in the 1991 election, gaining 14 seats.References
External links
* Profile at [http://rulers.org/indexk3.html rulers.org]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.