The vote of no confidence to unseat Samoan Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata'afa and her cabinet failed this week.

The parliamentary vote inside the country's Legislative Assembly on Tuesday resulted in 34 members of the house overwhelmingly opposing to oust Mata'afa's bloc of supporters against just 15 for the motion.

The numbers were said to be a show of unity from the ruling Faʻatuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi (FAST) party, who despite its own internal division in recent times, remained united to keep Mata'afa in power.

Speaker of the House Papalii Lio Masipua had first granted the opposition's formal request for a vote of no confidence against the Prime Minister last Friday.

Former Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, who led the Human Rights Protection Party for 23 years until its national election loss in 2021 to the FAST party, tabled the motion that permitted five members from the opposition bench to speak on it.

The Samoan government stated prior to the vote that Malielegaoi's move was just "another desperate attempt to stir political drama" ahead of the no-confidence vote.

But for the past two months, Samoan politics has been in a state of flux with a divided ruling party.

Political upheaval hit Samoa just three days into the new year after the FAST party chairman and Samoa's Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, La'auli Leuatea Schmidt, had admitted publicly he was facing criminal charges.

The 10 charges included harassment, making a false statement causing harm to a person's reputation, using insulting words to provoke a breach of the peace, conspiring to fabricate evidence and also conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

But in the aftermath of the disclosure, Schmidt refused to resign.

Mata'afa removed Schimdt from his ministerial portfolio and, consequently, seven days later removed a further three cabinet ministers.

Schmidt, however, remained chairman of the FAST Party and with his powers went on to announce the removal of the Prime Minister and five other cabinet ministers from the ruling party.

This decision was reportedly challenged by the removed members, according to the Samoa Observer.

In response, Mata'afa then removed 13 of her own associate ministers.

Schmidt acknowledged the challenge of holding a vote of no confidence, but refrained from disclosing the party's position, stating they would wait to reveal their hands until Tuesday.

Mata'afa retained her position as Samoa's first and only female Prime Minister from the vote of MPs.

It was an example of Mata'afa's political pedigree.

She rose to power on the back of her cultural heritage – her late father, Fiame Mata'afa Faumuina Mulinu'u, was the nation's first PM in 1959, leading Western Samoan independence two years later from Britain.

Mulinu'u was a Samoan paramount chief and the holder of the Mata'afa title, one of only four main chieftainships – the Faʻamatai, which is the Indigenous political system central to parts of Samoan society.

Mata'afa was schooled in Wellington and was forced to leave university in the capital of Aotearoa in 1977 for Samoa to settle a number of court cases around the succession of her father's titles following his death in 1975.

She was elected as MP for Lotofaga in 1985, the same seat both her father once held, but also then her mother once did immediately after his death.

Mata'afa took office following the April 2021 election win, but her party's grip in government has since devolved into political crisis.

The caretaker Human Rights Protection Party government locked the doors to parliament in an attempt to stop the then prime minister-elect Mata'afa from being sworn into office over the FAST Party's narrow one-seat election win.

Two parties claimed a mandate to rule, which forced the United Nations to urged both party leaders to find a solution

The Court of Appeal ruled the nation had a new government after it judged the impromptu swearing-in of Mata'afa on May 24, 2021, was legitimate under the doctrine of necessity.

It took until July 2021 for the incumbent Prime Minister, Malielegaoi, to concede the election loss and for parliamentary business to resume unhindered from protests.