FIAME NAOMI MATAAFA is set to become Samoa’s first female prime minister, after the Pacific nation’s top court helped break a month-long political impasse that followed a tightly contested April election.

Samoa’s Supreme Court overruled an attempt by the head of state to void the election results and also separately rejected the post-election creation of an additional parliamentary seat by the electoral commission that briefly gave the incumbent government a majority.

The court decisions clear the path for MATAAFA’s FAST party to form a government.