Va'ai Papu Vailupe

Who is Va'ai Papu Vailupe?

Va'ai Papu Vailupe is a Samoan politician and Member of Parliament. He is the leader of the Tautua Samoa Party.

Va'ai was first elected to the Samoan Legislative Assembly at the 1991 election. After being re-elected in 1996, he served as Parliamentary Undersecretary for Works, EPC, and the Water Authority, before being appointed to Cabinet as Minister of Justice Between 1998 and 2001, he served as Minister of Agriculture. Since 2006 he has been a backbench MP.

In December 2008 he became a founding member of the Tautua Samoa Party. As a result, in May 2009 he was one of nine Tautua MPs declared to have resigned their seats under an anti-party hopping law. He was subsequently reinstated after the Supreme Court of Samoa overturned the law and declared the formation of new parties legal.

In January 2010 new anti-party-hopping laws came into force, barring MPs from declaring their support for political parties or organizations with political aims other than the party they were elected for. In March 2010, he joined Lealailepule Rimoni Aiafi and Palusalue Fa’apo II in formally declaring his membership of the party and so was deemed to have resigned his seat. However, the HRPP was unable to find a candidate for the resulting by-election, and on 2 May 2010 he was declared elected unopposed, becoming the first non-HRPP MP to win a by-election.