PM must prioritise rebuilding the country but not his so-called "political reform" ^Featured

26 February, 2018

Dear Editor,

I pray that PM Pohiva will fully recover in time so that he will take full responsibility for the rebuilding of our country from Gita.

This should be the first and foremost item in his political agenda, for perhaps the next 2 to 3 years, given the magnitude of the damage done to the country.

His government should ensure that the country's recovery from Gita will not follow the same pattern of the recovery of Ha'apai from damages done by cyclone Ian in 2014.

So far, there has been no accountability as to the foreign and even the financial and material aids brought in by Tongans who live overseas to help the recovery effort.

It is rather surprising though that PM Pohiva seems to think that rebuilding the country from Gita seems trivial in comparison to what he calls "political reform".

Is not the current political system the result of 'political reform'? If we can dig up the reports on the political reform that resulted in our current political system, I think, we'll find that it was Mr. Pohiva and his supporters who decided on removing the power of the King's Privy Council from its decision-making status, he seems to be unhappy with that move and is really talking about the total removal of the Constitutional authority of the King.

This move is wrongheaded.

There is no opposition party in our current democracy to maintain the balance of power in government.

So, the King's Constitutional power over Parliament is meant to be one of the political measures that helps maintain the balance of power in our current democratic system.

And, if this Constitutional prerogative of the King is removed then it will only result in giving absolute power to the PM and his Cabinet to easily become dictators.

We all agree that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

And we have seen in the previous Pohiva government that he is a man who refuses to listen to the majority of the people of Tonga.

Even the statistics of this previous election shows that only 47% of the voters elect the current MPs (ie. including those who are not PTOA supporters).

In my calculation, only 38% of the voters were PTOA supporters. So, a majority of 62% of voters are not supporters of PM Pohiva.

PM Pohiva must face the fact that his government is a minority government.

And so, if there is a need for 'political reform', his government needs perhaps to consider a system of voting where the government-elect will represent the majority of the voting population.

I think the 62 % who didn't vote for PM Pohiva and his PTOA is in desperate need of a leader, who should stand up in opposition to PM Pohiva and his government in order to ensure political accountability and to unite the voting majority behind him.

An opposition leader can either come from inside or from outside the Parliament and does what PM Pohiva used to do in the 1980s when he stood for democracy in opposition to the then system of government.

I recall how he exposed the irresponsible salary of the then MPs and Cabinet ministers and summoned them to return the poor taxpayers' money to the Treasury.

Perhaps it was easier to do that sort of thing when he was an outsider to the government.

It's a totally different story now that Mr. Pohiva has become the PM.

In hindsight, it seems that the major problem with the previous political system was that Mr. Pohiva was not in the King's position, to make decisions.

He needs to slow down with what he calls 'political reform' implying the total removal of the King's political power because he does not have the voice of the majority of the Tongan people.

As our democratic leader, he is obligated to listen to the majority of the people when they appeal to him on wrong-headed decisions he made such as that exemplified by the "Raw marks" vs "Standardised marks" dispute and other unresolved disputes.

He also needs to set free the public media, like the TBC radio and other media sources to speak against him and his government like any normal democratic government.

But first up, he should try to unite the people of Tonga behind him in the rebuilding of the country.

I agree with King Tupou VI when he says, we Tongans should feel primarily responsible for the rebuilding of Tonga and stop relying rather heavily on foreign countries for financial assistance.

We must stand up and make true of the motto of our country: God and Tonga are my inheritance.

Faka'apa'apa atu,

Rev Dr Ma'afu Palu