‘Tonga must evolve its own model to bring its political system into the modern age. A new egalitarian political system will only propel it to greater success. The time is now and Tongans must act swiftly’


The passing of King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV in Auckland last month is indeed a sad moment for the people of Tonga. An overwhelmingly large number of Tongans alive today have not known a monarch other than King Tupou IV, whose reign spanned a little over four long decades.

This has been a traumatic year for the Pacific’s only island kingdom. The King’s death came just months after two royals—Prince Tuipelehake and his wife—tragically died in a car accident in the United States along with their driver.

The departed King’s long reign was peppered with controversy, mainly the consequence of bad commercial decisions, bringing him and his country much criticism, even disrepute—especially from the region’s western powers.

What has been less acknowledged, though, is his deep interest in and commitment to the country’s education system, as well as other developmental aspects of his small nation.

This is reflected in the fact that Tonga today tops the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Human Development Index ranking among Pacific Islands states ahead of even Fiji and Samoa.

Tonga comes out tops in such vital areas of human development such as education, early childhood healthcare, access to safe drinking water and sanitation, besides access to utilities like energy and telecommunications.

Tonga is said to have more Ph.D. degree holders per capita than any other country in the world—though most of these have been earned overseas.

Moreover, unlike other Pacific Islands democracies, Tonga was faster off the blocks in liberalising some of its regulatory regimes—particularly in telecommunications, starting the downward trend in call rates in the islands region, well before the others.  All that would not have been easy to achieve without the support of the King who some liked to describe as ‘all powerful’, even if much of that success has been the result of external aid.

Having said that, it must be added here that most utility services had royal family ownership and though these enterprises undoubtedly benefitted the people, the royals have had to live with allegations of profiteering at the expense of their own subjects.

Encouragingly, however, the departed King’s son who is now crowned King Siaosi Tupou V, has expressed his desire to divest all his business interests.

This is a most welcome sign for the kingdom and could perhaps be a harbinger of changing times ahead: members of the royal family are believed to hold considerable assets overseas and this is as good a time as any to bring these back for the good of their subjects. That would go a long way in addressing many of Tonga’s pressing economic problems.

The King’s departure may well mark a watershed in the island kingdom’s history. This is the moment in time when Tonga must seriously consider the future of its political system. It has had a movement for democracy for some time now and it is for the Tongans to quickly give it a shot in the arm to create the right conditions for change, sooner than later.

With an entrenched system that vests a great deal of political and economic power in the royals and privileged families of nobles, this will be no easy task. But Tonga’s royalty and nobility must realise that kingdoms where kings and a privileged few still call the shots are not just a stark anachronism in today’s times but are also increasingly unstable, even violently so.

Educated, liberal-minded people who constitute the valuable human capital of any country find such environments stifling and leave in droves for a better life overseas. The kingdom of Nepal is a case in point.

There is any number of models across the world where royalty has successfully been absorbed into a democratic system. The recent military coup in democratic Thailand still has a King at the centre of things!
Nearer home in the Pacific Islands, both Fiji and Samoa have integrated traditional chiefly systems into their democratic polity with good success—and it has worked well for decades. Likewise, Europe has dozens of royal families integrated seamlessly into democratic systems.

Tonga must evolve its own model to bring its political system into the modern age. Only then, will it be able to woo its disproportionately large brains trust back to its shores to take the country ahead. It already has a head-start in the development stakes. A new egalitarian political system will only propel it to greater success.

The time is now and Tongans must act swiftly.