Name Palusalue II | Role Politician | |
Palusalue Fa’apo II is a Samoan politician and former Cabinet Minister. He is the leader of the opposition Tautua Samoa Party.
Palusalue was first elected to Parliament in 1996. He served as Parliamentary Undersecretary to the Minister of Justice. After being re-elected in 2001, he was appointed to Cabinet, first as Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation, and then as Minister of Communication & Information Technology. After the 2006 election he became associate Minister of Finance.
Palusalue left the governing Human Rights Protection Party in March 2008 and joined the opposition as an independent MP. He later 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. As a result, along with Lealailepule Rimoni Aiafi and Va'ai Papu Vailupe he was deemed to have resigned his seat. He was re-elected in the resulting by-election.