MELBOURNE (Pacnews) — Reformers want to change the political system in one of the world’s last remaining feudal kingdoms.
Tonga’s Human Rights and Democracy Movement, encouraged by a strong showing in last month’s election, are launching a campaign to create what they call a democratic monarchy in Tonga.
Tonga has a constitution that dates back to 1875, in the reign of King George Tupou, who effectively unified the country and laid down the present system, which guarantees that the common people get relatively little say in the way they are governed.
Parliament has nine MPs elected by the people, nine elected by the country’s 33 nobles, who also own all the land, and 12 personally selected by the king to serve as his Cabinet.
Tonga’s highly active Human Rights and Democracy Movement has been emboldened by last month’s very successful election, in which they captured seven of the nine commoner seats. The movement is launching a campaign to overhaul the system.
Office director Lopeti Senitlui says the movement wants Tonga to have a two-chamber parliament, with the nobles electing an upper house, and the lower house consisting entirely of members elected by the people.
“The title we’ve given our new structure of government is a democratic monarchy. So in other words we are not doing away with the monarchy, we are adding democratic changes to the structure,” Senituli said.
According to Senituli, they want to set up a House of Nobles, which would remove the existing nine aristocrats from the Legislative Assembly into an upper house.
The other 21 MPs would be elected by the people, and candidacy would be open to all Tongan citizens, commoners, nobles and even members of the royal family.
This would remove the king’s ability to choose 12 MPs by himself, which probably dooms the proposal, but Senituli isn’t deterred.
