“ That was well-said by Dr 'Aisake Valu Eke, Tonga's former champion Minister of Finance. What was said could not be too far from the truth. The truth of the matter is that it is surely NOT a good thing at all for segregating the Noble's and People's Representatives in Parliament.
And the same thing applies more so beyond the strictly privileged confines and immunity of Parliament to their other important, hands-on and accountable respective but mutually inclusive roles in the wider Tongan society.
Why, the question may be asked? Because all of the representatives of the nobles and people (not to mention the government considered as an informal ruling party, as well as the king) do represent in both theory and practice one and the same people - the whole of the people of Tonga.
Both the noble's and people's representatives must rise above politics of persons for individual gains (nobles for nobles versus people for people) to politics of collective benefits for the overall beneficial gains of the whole of the people of Tonga (royalty plus nobility plus people in all).
The unofficial turning of the existing representatives of the nobles and people into assumed political parties -- governed by strict political ideologies as to the production, distribution and consumption of the totality of Tonga's material, intellectual and social resources -- is both truly misleading and highly problematic.
It is both truly misleading and highly problematic especially in view of the fact that ALL the representatives of both the nobles and people (and even in the case of the government as the as the so-named ruling party), really represent, in the final analysis, the whole of the people of Tonga.
The same applies to the opposition of every issue put forward by either the ruling party or the opposition party straight up merely for the sake of opposing it is too NOT at all good and NOT at all healthy.
Ideally, though, every issue put forward irrespective of their so-called political party origins should be freely debated on its own merit for the overall benefits of the whole of the people of Tonga and NOT, as has always been the norm, subsumed to political ideologies of party politics or for that matter for mere opposition.
The ad hoc classification of MP representatives into political parties when in reality party politics has not been both formally and legally put in place, for example, Noble's Party, People's Party, Independent Party and Democratic Party, is too both truly misleading and highly problematic for all the more obvious reasons earlier said.
In this day and age, where there is one world with many cultures, or the world a single global village, are not all the said parties based in varying degrees on elements of democracy as an introduced political system, which lies in closer affinity to capitalism as an introduced economic system (and NOT where some are taken as dictatorship)?
What if on that basis a so-called party, such as the very Democratic Party, defies most, if not all, of the elements of democracy notably transparency, accountability, equality/equity and justice it pretends to stand for? Should it be worthy the name? ”