Biography
Born at Lepa, Samoa, Malielegaoi is an economist by profession. He attended high school at St Joseph's College, Lotopa then obtained a master's from the University of Auckland, becoming the first Samoan to receive a master's degree in commerce.
He worked for the European Economic Community and Coopers & Lybrand before being elected to the Samoan parliament in 1980.
Tuilaepa was the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance under Tofilau Eti Alesana following the Human Rights Protection Party's return to power after the coalition government of Va'ai Kolone and Tupua. For a while he was both Prime Minister and Minister of Finance after Tofialu stepped down from the Premiership. However, following a Cabinet reshuffle after the following elections in which he led the HRPP for an additional term, Tuilaepa relinquished the post of Minister of Finance to Misa Telefoni Retzlaff who also became the new Deputy Prime Minister.
The reason given for Tuilaepa's relinquishment of the Ministry of Finance was the amount of responsibility and work involved being both Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and to do the job properly required a full time Minister. Tuilaepa has twice reassigned the Finance portfolio since that time.
Tuilaepa first won election to represent his Lepa district in 1980, after the death of the previous representative. He has successfully won re-election for Lepa since that time. He served as finance minister in the Tofilau government of 1991 and 1996. In 1996, he was appointed deputy prime minister. In 1998, Tofilau retired from parliament (and hence the prime ministership) due to ill-health. Tuilaepa then became the 6th Prime Minister of Samoa. He has successfully led his HRPP party to re-election in the 2001, 2006 and 2011 general elections.
Malielegaoi lost two relatives in the 2009 Samoan earthquake and tsunami, including the daughter of one of his nieces. Most of Malielegaoi's hometown of Lepa, Samoa, was destroyed in the tsunami, leaving just the church and the village's welcome sign standing.
Read more about this topic: Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi
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