Transcript
KALAFI MOALA: But that is just the latest. I mean, we go back to a series of things. For example, his declaration of war against the media, particularly the public media. The government-owned media Tonga Broadcasting Commission, the CEO has been dismissed, her contract was not renewed. Two board members over a period of the last year and a half have been dismissed. All of this was done. They have contracts, they have legislation that guards the Broadcasting Commission. The basis of all of that was that he believes the Tonga Broadcasting Commission was not supporting his government. While that is still unresolved and there is a lot of public discussion of that, he moves on and cancels the games. Prior to that, there was all kinds of situations, like he is building a park in a poor area and there is a lot of questions. A park? There was never part of a government plan to build a park. The he declares he was going to build a golf course right next door to the park and in the process of building this golf course he is going to end up destroying some of the key heritage sites in Tonga. These are sites that we call Sia Heu Lupe, very significant in our history, and he is going to destroy all of that for the sake of building a golf course. There is a whole bunch of things, the way he dealt with education, but essentially it's decisions that are made with no reasons or at least that were given were based on false assumptions.
KORO VAKA'UTA: Do the people on the ground have the same dissatisfaction or is it something that is not even bothering them?
KM: There is a huge growing dissatisfaction. At the beginning, I think most people knew that the prime minister was going to undergo huge changes to his own mindset and his own way of doing things. Remember he was for about 30 years in the Opposition. He was basically Tonga's chief critic about the system of Tonga, about the culture, a whole number of things and he was calling for reform so there was a lot of hope in a lot of people and they thought maybe when this guy and this government comes in we are going to see the kind of reforms that we need in Tonga. But when this government came into being we have seen just the opposite. We are not more democratic now than we have been. A lot of decisions that are made are dictatorial. We are seeing a very high level of incompetence and I think with all due respect to Mr Pohiva himself, he did well as an opposition leader. There were a lot of national issues that he raised but then when you give him the reins of government, I think he is having a difficult time. The cabinet itself, they are not together. They are not one, they are not in unity. He's had ministers which he has dismissed or replaced. More and more people are asking questions and they are not getting the answers.
KV: You have been close to Mr Pohiva in the past, you have worked beside him, for him, is it shocking what's happened?
KM: Yes it is shocking because what Pohiva brought to Tonga was hope. Many of us who have grown in Tonga, we have seen some of the inconsistencies in the way power has dealt with the people of Tonga. A lot of questions we have had, is this just? The people in power at the time were actually saying well we are going to bring in some changes. Particularly from the royal family there were indications that yes we have got to move with the times and there will need to be some changes. Now all through this time Pohiva has been a very strong voice that Tonga must undergo reform to make Tonga be more democratic, that there needs to be better sharing of resources, equality and so on. And for many of us who wanted to see reform, we all came around Pohiva and got on the train so to speak. But as the years went by, it was again on hope. Then of course when he became the prime minister our hope was just so high. There were many things that were promised. One was good governance. There was going to be transparency. There was going to be accountability. Fair and just sharing of resources. We're going to focus on trying to reduce poverty, making services a lot more affordable. There were a whole bunch of things listed, because I was quite involved with them in the campaign of 2014 to bring them into power. Then when the government came into being, Mr Pohiva became the prime minister, everything we had hoped for,everything that he had promised, and I mean everything, I couldn't check any of those lists that it had been taken care of.
KV: Do you regret now your part in that lead up to the 2014 election?
KM: No I don't because in 2014, what would have been the alternative? And whenever you do something out of hope, you have to give hope a chance. Some of us who have been close to Mr Pohiva for many, many years, we knew some of his weaknesses but we thought well at least if we can get into the door, maybe there is hope. For the first few months I was his media advisor and my hope was eroded and not only my hope, I found that a lot of hope of people who were supporters who were pushing for this. The push was not because Pohiva was the saviour, it was because we wanted Tonga to move to something better.
KV: The call for resignation, what do you hope to achieve by this, having this published now?
KM: We feel as media, to provide a voice, and there is a voice there that is provided through this report of our newspaper of many, many people that feel he should be out. That he needs to have somebody else lead the country that is more competent. I mean, if you have a politician you better have a politician you can trust. That's not our experience with him. We feel that we are to provide a voice for the voiceless, those people that are calling for him to be replaced. I think he will be remembered for some of the work that he has done before as an opposition leader but if he continues to do what he is doing he will go down as probably the worst prime minister we have ever had.
