Tonga pro-democracy movement welcomes proposed changes
Updated
Tonga's pro-democracy movement has come out in support of moves to change the Kingdom's parliamentary system to give ordinary voters more power. A report by the country's Constitutional and Electoral Commission has recommended having the overwhelming majority of MPs elected by the people, although it wants to continue to guarantee nine seats in parliament for the nobles.
The government has yet to finalise its response to the proposals.
Long-time pro-democracy movement leader Akilisi Pohiva says that his movement welcomes the changes, although he acknowledges that this means his movement will have to change now that it's achieved almost everything it set out to do.
Presenter: Bruce Hill
Speaker: Akilisi Pohiva, Tonga's pro-democracy movement leader
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POHIVA: There are of course differences in some of the issues, but we thought at this point in time we had to support the report simply because of the fact that we had a member in the commission. And the report is an outcome of the collective decision of all the members.
HILL: Now the report does call for a parliament comprised of nine nobles and 17 peoples representatives. Is that all that you'd asked for, that you still want some guaranteed representation for the nobles as well, or would you eventually like parliament to be completely elected just by the people?
POHIVA: Well our original proposal was that for the people to elect all 26 members, to elect the nine representatives of the nobles and 17 representatives of the people. But the outcome of the report is a little bit different. They proposed that the nine representatives of the nobles be elected by the nobles. That difference we all agree that we have to accept that at this point of time. We don't have to challenge that, but to us they get a sense of our proposals are in line with what is given in the final report.
HILL: Well if the pro-democracy movement is basically happy with this report with the makeup of the new parliament does this perhaps call into question the pro-democracy movement's continued existence? I mean you've now got what you said that you were after, what are you going to do now that you've achieved your goals?
POHIVA: Now we have to sit down and plan for the future. Of course we already worked out our program for the new government and we are waiting for the outcome of the next election.
HILL: Well now if the majority of seats in parliament are going to be directly elected by the people - which is the most significant change to have happened to Tonga's political system in a hundred years - this means that the people will wield genuine power. Do you think the people are ready for this, do they want to take this step and what happens? Are organisations and groups going to form, are we going to see the formation of say political parties perhaps now that real power is at stake?
POHIVA: Both parties we're aware naturally emerge in the future and we have no doubt in our minds that is what is going to happen. But at the moment we are still trying to organise our group for the next election.
HILL: The government has recently appointed two peoples representatives to the cabinet. Is there any feeling in the pro-democracy movement that perhaps the government's trying to poach some of your members and bring them across into the government by making them cabinet ministers?
POHIVA: Everyone is well aware of that from our side, and the way we look at it the Prime Minister is trying to increase the number of the executive and it appears that the Prime Minister is well prepared to when it comes to point that they get the majority. But we do know about that. I would like to say at this point we fully support the recommendation of the commission, and we draw the line and we do not want us to go beyond that. That is history, we'e drawn the boundary and we have nothing to say, we have nothing to debate on, this is the end of our struggle and we fully support the recommendation and that's the end of it.