“ The general conduct of government of the affairs of Tonga as a nation state is true of the saying, "an unopposed state is an oppressive state and an oppressive state is a servile state." This is clearly symptomatic of the ongoing conduct of government of such affairs as press conferences, law office, civil service, boards, education matters and worst still parliamentary processes and procedures.
The conduct of such affairs is far from being wholly democratic and therefore subversive, oppressive and dictatorial in orientation. Taken in total, it is strictly opposed to what is understood to be the very core of democracy, referred to as political governance, and made up of transparency, accountability, equality and justice.
As it stands right now, this truly alarming orientation is slowly but surely tending towards the formation of a police state and a police state conveniently changed to a military state. But it needs to be in firm control of both but especially in exercising complete power over the military as a tool of satisfying hunger for power as a means of subversion, oppression and exploitation, which is barred by the constitution, except if it is grabbed by force!
By the way, may I thank Hausia for bringing the matter of privatisation into the discussion but as a truly problematic element of the neo-liberal or new-right economic and political thinking and practice (as for the whole of the Pacific, including Tonga), I shall come back to reflecting on it in another time, another place. ”