By Staff Reporters/

Apia, Samoa – 30 August 2025: It was 2.21am this (Saturday) morning and the media were still waiting for the Office of the Electoral Commission (OEC) to declare the official preliminary results of yesterday’s national elections.

Instead, the OEC media Liaison Officer, Malolo Seumanutafa Lima Vaepule informed the media to wrap up their work as the police will soon lock the gym with the ballot boxes inside.

When asked about the official preliminary results, Malolo said the results are on the boards.

However, the media noted that the individual results for most of the electoral constituencies expected to be posted on the boards inside the gym were incomplete.

Malolo however said that the incomplete information were of special votes which did not add up because there were still individual polling booths without any results posted.

During a press conference at around 11.00pm last night (Friday), the Electoral Commissioner Toleafoa Tuiafelolo John Stanley told the media that the preliminary result would be finalised last night once the ballot boxes from Savaii arrived.

Toleafoa was asked during the press conference why the delay in uploading the results on the boards when candidates and political parties were already celebrating indicating their win.

“It is a requirement in election that after the count, the results should be posted for the districts information,” he said.

For all the 50 constituencies, the results for each candidate in each polling booth are posted on these boards in the gym used by the OEC.

Political parties set up their own data compilation of the election results based on the first count of the votes in each of the polling booths. That information which was supposed to be the same relayed to OEC, was used to gauge the number of seats each party had won.

Tuiafelolo told the media that the results already published on social media are those of scrutineers, but the complete and correct results come from OEC.

Asked if the delay from Savaii was due to connectivity he said no.

“We expected them to send the results over, but it seems they prefer to bring them themselves,” he said.

Two trucks carrying the ballots boxes arrived at the Multipurpose gym at Tuanaimato at around 12.27am and the media waited for new updates to be posted.

However, after 2.00am, the media were asked to wrap up their work as the police were locking the gym up with the ballot boxes inside.

Still, the majority of electoral constituencies had incomplete information posted on the boards and were told that that was the final result.

Asked for a chance to speak to the Electoral Commissioner, Malolo said that he had already left.

The OEC is expected to release an official preliminary result later today as the final count begins on Monday. The special votes will be opened and counted today, and pre-polling results on Monday 01 September 2025.

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