Tonga under new King Siaosi Tupou V

Samisoni Pareti/ Pictures: Taina Kami-Enoka

The funeral of King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV in Nuku'alofa last month

Is Crown Prince Tupouto’a, now King Siaosi Tupou V, averse to continuing political reforms in Tonga? Until the eve of the tabling in the Kingdom’s Legislative Assembly of the report of the National Committee for Political Reform, many including the island kingdom’s first non-royal family prime minister, believe the answer to this question is a resounding yes! Yet the new king may not be what the Tongans had made him out to be, especially if a media release circulated quietly by the office of the Lord Chamberlain late last month is to be taken seriously.

Tonga's new King Siaosi Tupou V

Distributed by the Fiji public relations firm of Samba which is contracted to the Royal Palace in Tonga, the statement in addition to its obvious purpose of casting a highly positive image of the new monarch that he has an “immaculate English, can converse in French and German and has a smattering of Chinese and Japanese,” on top of being “an accomplished pianist and widely read,” the five-page document went on to reveal what might have been the main purpose of its circulation.

“The new King strongly believes Tonga’s Constitution is the keystone of the Kingdom’s peace and stability,” the media release bearing the Lord Chamberlain’s insignia stated.

“He has described it as a social contract that created unity after Tonga’s civil war of the 18th and 19th centuries.

“In his view, the Constitution does not have to be fundamentally changed for representative democratic government to be introduced speedily.”

Released just five days before the report of the National Committee for Political Reform—now chaired by Hawaii-based academic, Dr Sitiveni Halapua, (after the death of its original chair, the late Prince Tu’ipelehake)—was due to go before the Assembly, no one in the Lord Chamberlain’s office could say whether the new King’s “views” were a preview to the committee’s report or were they aimed at countering what the Halapua Committee was recommending.

By now King Siaosi would have read the report since the original copy was handed to his late father at his Auckland Hospital bed in late August.

As if to prove his case that Tonga’s constitution need not change in order to accommodate a more “representative government,” the Lord Chamberlain’s media statement offered some recent examples that included “the appointment of Tonga’s first popularly-elected commoner Prime Minister, Dr Feleti (Fred) Sevele.

“Other cabinet ministers are now in office only on the advice of the Prime Minister, rather than through the exclusive power of the monarch,” the statement said.

“This has been achieved within the framework of the existing constitution.”

Such a proposition is not new. In a rare interview he gave this magazine in 2002, King Siaosi, then Crown Prince, argued against tinkering with the island kingdom’s supreme law.

“You should realise that changing the constitution is a very big deal because despite anything written about Tonga, the population still regards the constitution as a refuge.

“It is not yet a play-thing of the government.

“Tongans are a product of their own history. We went through a civil war from 1799 to 1864.

“That is a long war by any standard and it made the Tongan character.

“If they opt for stability rather than change, it is understandable. It may not be wise, but it is understandable.”

Perhaps differing in the details, Prime Minister Sevele concurs that political change in Tonga will continue under the reign of King Siaosi. Such changes, said Sevele, were initiated by the late king and the momentum is expected to continue under his son.

“Look in the House, we’ve got nine elected by the Nobles, two more are Nobles’ representatives in cabinet, and of the nine People’s Representatives, there are an additional three (people’s reps) in cabinet,” the Prime Minister told ISLANDS BUSINESS.

“So 23 of the 32 members of parliament are from the elected representatives, so really we’ve got a majority there.

“In cabinet, we’ve got five out of 13 ministers from the elected reps, so we are moving forward quite rapidly, but not too rapidly that we run into dangers that other democracies have faced.”

In taking a pro-active stance of accepting change—political reforms most specifically—but without the need to amend Tonga’s constitution, it will be interesting to see whether the wish of the new king and that of his prime minister will work given the wide-ranging changes  sought by pro-democracy campaigners like Tongatapu Number 1 People’s Representative, ‘Akilisi Pohiva.

Accountability will be the key, Pohiva said, and this would only come about if all 32 members of the Legislative Assembly are elected by the people of Tonga.

“Our proposal is clear,” Pohiva told this magazine in a telephone interview last month.

Akilisi Pohiva

“Our recommendation is for the people to elect all members of parliament and all the elected MPs appoint the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister appoints all the ministers.

“That is our proposal and we still hold on to that proposal.”

The pro-democracy leader will also push for the reduction of the king’s powers—like its British counterpart—to a ceremonial one.

One of Pohiva’s colleagues in parliament who until his dramatic sacking as police minister in August 2004 was a strong advocate of the late king, Clive Edwards fears the people of the kingdom after tasting ‘people power’ in last year’s prolonged civil servants strike would not accept anything less than more political reforms.

Said Edwards: “The present mood of the people if I may use that term is that they want change.

“And if the change is not implemented, there could be some unrest amongst them because there is some very strong feelings about change at present.”

Pohiva is adamant that what the people of Tonga want and the innate wish of the new ruler may not necessarily be the same. The king is a stranger to his own people, he said.

“He has been for a long period of time, living in a different planet. He doesn’t seem to be interested in the affairs of the commoners, of the common people.

“The people who are close to him are foreigners and he is very much involved in business and committed to his own business and commercial activities.”

The former school teacher turned pro-democracy campaigner of course knows that King Siaosi is divesting all his business interests now that he has become king.

But in confirming this in the media statement, the Lord Chamberlain was silent on a very crucial piece of information; what happens to the fortune the monarch will glean from the exercise?

Said Pohiva: “Oh yes, he’s not going to give it up for free. He’s going to get a lot of money from all his businesses.

“I think he is a shareholder of four different companies. But surrendering his business interests is a good start. But let’s wait and see because he may in one way or another continue to influence the business community through his former business colleagues or partners. It may not be an easy thing for him to completely get away from his former business partners, but let’s wait and see.”

Is Tonga now seeing the working of a ‘master plan’ the then crown prince now king was rumoured to have started with the appointment  of Sevele as PM early this year?

Critics of the monarch like Tavake Fusimalohi, a long-time apologist of the royal family as general manager of the kingdom’s state radio and television service and now editor of Pohiva’s weekly Kele’a newspaper, thought so.

He told this magazine in its May 2006 cover story on Sevele: “They say his younger brother (former prime minister Prince ‘Ulukalala Lavaka Ata) was not capable of carrying this out, so that’s why he’s got Sevele to execute his plan.

“That some political reforms will be allowed (thus the appointment of Sevele), but the powers of the monarch will stay, not reduced, as demanded by pro-democracy campaigners like Pohiva,” ISLANDS BUSINESS wrote that month.

“The plan also speaks of the desire by the Crown Prince (King Siaosi) to dispose of his many business interests and pocket a sizeable fortune as a result.”

Sevele, one of the Kingdom’s most successful tycoon who holds a doctorate in economics, rubbished this in that same edition saying his main concern as prime minister “will always be the national interest”.

“That is what I’ve been appointed to look after and that will be what I will be concentrating on,” he said.

Given his utterances and ‘track record’ to-date, King Siaosi is most likely to continue with the reforms his people had come to expect and enjoy. It was after all him who publicly ridiculed the government’s clampdown on media freedom in 2004.

In addition, it was his decision when he was Prince Regent that saw Sevele re-elected as one of the nine People’s Representatives in the 2005 general election, and became a cabinet minister of his majesty’s government. His hand was also seen in the unprecedented resignation without notice of Prince ‘Ulukalala as prime minister early this year.

Although he did not ascend to the throne until the death of his father on September 11, King Siaosi had been influential in many of the late king’s decisions over the last decade or so.

So Tonga’s new king is not necessarily averse to change, but perhaps it is his idea of the shape and pace of that change that makes him different from that of his subjects in the region’s last surviving monarchial dynasty.

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CHANGING OF THE GUARD

King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV

• Born: Siaosi Taufa’ahau Tupoulahi on July 4, 1918
• Educated:Tupou College, Newington College, Sydney University
• Served: Education Minister when 24 years old, before holding portfolios of health, agriculture then prime minister for 16 years.
• Became King: On July 4, 1967 after his mother, Queen Salote, died on December 16, 1965.
• Survived by: Queen Halaevalu Mata’aho ‘Ahome’e, two sons (King Siaosi and Prince ‘Ulukalala Lavaka Ata) and daughter (Princess Pilolevu Tuita).

King Siaosi Tupou V

• Born: Siaosi Taufa’ahau Manumataongo Tuku’aho Tupou V on May 4, 1948.
• Educated: Primary education in Switzerland, King’s College (Auckland), Oxford University and Sandhurst Military Academy
• Served: Like his late father, the Crown Prince served as a cabinet minister including Foreign Minister of Tonga from 1979 to 1998 when he resigned to pursue his varied business interests.
• Became King: When his father, King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV died on September 11, 2006.
• A bachelor still at 58, King Siaosi “is a student of history, diplomacy and statecraft and has expert knowledge of military strategy and tactics and modern armaments,” said a statement released by the Lord Chamberlain’s office through its public relations firm.

He is colonel-in-chief of Tonga’s Defence Force, the statement added.

In an interview he gave the publisher of this magazine, the late Robert Keith-Reid, in 2002, King Siaosi then still the crown prince, spoke of his latest hobby: making a movie about eagle hunting in Mongolia wearing “riding breeches, aviator goggles and a Russian fur hat”. He also mentioned an unpublished 1500-page historical novel set in Czarist Russia.