Tonga's Democrats well organised for November poll

Transcript

Nominations for next month's elections in Tonga are in and the signs are that this poll will be markedly different from the last one.

The election in 2010 was the first election in which candidates elected by the people made up the majority of MPs in the Legislature.

It was an historic moment for the country but in the end, the nobles, with support from a number of independents, ended up dominating the Government and Cabinet.

Publisher and long time advocate for democratic reform, Kalafi Moala, told Don Wiseman that first four years, as the country tried to embrace more democracy, left a lot to be desired.  

KALAFI MOALA: There has been a lot of disappointment with the current Government so there are calls for changes and I think there are a lot of people wanting to get in because they were dissatisfied with last time.

DON WISEMAN: And perhaps a lot of dissatisfaction with the Opposition - it became bogged down in the middle of that time, trying to remove the Government, didn't it? And seemed to lose focus.

KM: That's right. I think one of the things that happened in 2010 and especially in 2012 when they were trying to make that vote of no confidence, is that the Opposition was basically surprised that there were those from among their ranks that basically defected to join the other party to form the Government. And I think that was a major issue and since then, during these past four years they have been kind of fighting a losing battle in Parliament, and they want to correct this. And I see by the organisation that is going on and their campaigning and their regrouping, it definitely looks much much stronger this time than 2010.   

DW: You mean a lot more party focussed this time round?

KM: More party focussed, more unity. As you probably know there was a major disruption in their midst where they were going to split this way and that way, but they looked at it as like removing the bad oranges from the box, so to speak. And they have re-organised with a lot of new blood and a lot of qualified people so to speak. And it has been since May - they have been running on this since May, and in fact they are the only group, or only party, that is is organised with a clear cut vision and a mission. They have got their manifesto. They have got policies in place. They have got a plan of action for the first 100 days, if they do get into government, the things they are going to be doing. So there is no one - not an individual or a small group in Tonga going into this next election that is as organised and as united as the pro-democracy group that is going in.

DW: Going into the earlier election there were other parties or attempts at forming other parties - I don't think any of them won seats, but I know that at least in one case that party is going to run again. Do you think they will succeed?

KM: Very unlikely that they will. I think the strong showing that is coming on. There have been a number of, I would say, informal surveys that have been conducted, the pro-democracy group under Akilisi Pohiva's leadership - I have covered the elections since 1991. I have not seen as strong of a group going into an election like they do have this year. And I think this is due to a very good organisation and simply trying to correct what they felt were the mistakes and things that happened in the last election.

DW: You have not always seen eye to eye with Akilisi Pohiva, but you are singing his praises here. What do you imagine is going to be the outcome of the election at this early stage?

KM: Well definitely you are correct I have been a critic of his, going back to 2006 and some of the disturbances that happened then but I look at everybody who has survived through the period of time, and the leadership, the political leadership in that group, both those that are in the establishment and those that are in Government and those that are in opposition, definitely there isn't another alternative, Pohiva comes up as the likely one, that if he can form a good government that they will probably bring about the change that Tonga needs. So there are a lot of us here in the country on his leadership. And of course this is the final election that he will be part of. He has declared and spoken up publicly that this [will be] his last term in Parliament, but if he becomes government there is a lot of hope that he will be the one to bring about the necessary changes in Tonga. The other thing too is that the team that he has now is a very very highly qualified team, because of all of them that went into Parliament with him in 2010, there are only five of those that are still in Parliament that are part of the pro-democracy movement. So you have got a whole new group. You have got 7 new candidates that have come in, that are going in with him. That's seven to replace those that have gone out, but they are fielding 17 candidates - all of the districts that are voting for People's Representation.

DW: They [the Democrats] did very poorly in the outer islands last time didn't they, so you would expect them to do better this time around?

KM: I believe they will do a lot better this time. All they need this time is 14. If they can win the 14 seats they will be a Government. And what happened [ in 2010] they had five independents from the outer islands, who were not pro-democracy people and those five elected to go with the nobles when they came into Parliament and so the nobles obviously won that - 14 to 12 - but this time there is the highest likelihood that Pohiva and his group will win the majority.