American Samoa
Politics

American Samoa is an unincorporated and unorganized territory of the United States, administered by the Office of Insular Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior. American Samoa's constitution was ratified in 1966 and came into effect in 1967.

However, despite being de jure unorganized as no Organic Act for it has been adopted by the U.S. Congress, instead leaving power vested in the U.S. president, American Samoa is de facto organized, with its politics taking place in the framework of a presidential representative democratic dependency, whereby the Governor is the head of government, and of a pluriform multi-party system.

Executive power is exercised by the governor. Legislative power is vested in the two chambers of the legislature. The American political parties (Republican and Democratic) exist in American Samoa, but few politicians are aligned with the parties. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.

There is also the traditional village politics of the Samoa Islands, the " faʻamatai " and the " faʻa Sāmoa ", which continues in American Samoa and independent Samoa, and which interacts across these current boundaries. The fa ʻ a Sāmoa is the language and customs, and the fa ʻ amatai are the protocols of the "fono" (council) and the chief system. The fa ʻ amatai and the fono take place at all levels of the Samoan body politic, from the family to the village, to the region, to national matters.

The ʻ aiga is the family unit of Samoan society, which differs from the Western sense of a family in that it consists of an "extended family" based on the culture's communal socio-political organization. The head of the ʻ aiga is the matai. The matai (chiefs) are elected by consensus within the fono of the extended family and village(s) concerned. The matai and the fono, which are themselves made of matai, decide on the distribution of family exchanges and tenancy of communal lands. The majority of lands in American Samoa and independent Samoa are communal. A matai can represent a small family group or a great extended family that reaches across islands and to both American Samoa and independent Samoa.

In 2010, voters rejected a package of amendments to the territorial constitution, which would have, among other things, allowed U.S. citizens to be legislators only if they had Samoan ancestry.

In 2012, both the Governor and American Samoa's delegate to the U.S. Congress Eni Faleomavaega called for the populace to consider a move toward autonomy if not independence, with a mixed response.
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