Transcript
MARGARET WILSON: It was very efficient. It was very professional. There were no major issues, certainly the electoral commission staff were very well prepared. The voters moved through the polling booth. In fact, while there are always the odd little thing, overall, certainly it was conducted in a fair and democratic way.
KORO VAKA'UTA: You made mention, briefly anyway, in the preliminary report, in terms of the engagement that everyone seemed to be informed and engaged about both the process and everything around the election.
MW: Yes. I think that's right. There was a high level of interest in the election and I suppose that was partially also because of the early election but civil society groups we engaged with, certainly stressed the need for ongoing information about the electoral system, and that will be one of our recommendations.
KV: Like civil education, that sort of thing?
MW: Yes. There was a level of it, I hasten to add, and people certainly do. It's a very literate electorate in an electoral sense but people are interested and things do change and develop so certainly we will support them in that.
KV: It's been a special election in that two women candidates were successful, for the first time, together being elected into the Legislative Assembly?
MW: Yes and I think that is seen as being significant in Tonga itself and also some of the women's groups we met with would like more than two but I think it does show progress and the level of campaigning was much more professional and sophisticated and I think in the next election you will certainly see further campaigns from women candidates and hopefully they will produce more women being elected.
KV: You were in quite a privileged position, if you like, you managed to observe the Noble's vote which hasn't always happened. What did you make of that?
MW: Yes. We noted that in fact if we were to observe the election that it wasn't only for the People's Representatives but for the sake of completeness, I should also have an opportunity to observe the nobles, and I did. It was a very interesting process, but perfectly normal in the sense people voted and then the count was undertaken by the members of the electoral commission, I observed that. The only matter to note was that two candidates had a tied vote, so the electoral law provides for that, that where there are two with the same vote, it's determined by a toss of the coin, in the presence of both of them. That's what happened.
KV: Is that ideal? The coin toss...
MW: It's fairly normal actually. Not only in Tonga but electoral provisions often provide for that. I think actually in New Zealand there have been some mayoral positions or certainly council positions, determined by the toss of a coin.
KV: In terms of the dissolution, the unique build-up to this election, was there anything during this election that you saw that maybe that had impacted?
MW: Well I think thanks to the professionalism of the supervisor of elections and the electoral commission staff, everything went remarkably smoothly. Certainly I think it put some pressure on them but they did deliver a good roll, the polling booth, the staff were very well trained and the count was undertaken in a professional and transparent manner.
KV: And you mentioned, going forward, one of the recommendations about continuing the education around the electoral process, are there any other things that you would like to be worked on in Tonga?
MW: There is always an issue about encouraging youth to participate in the electoral process and I think that will be an ongoing issue as it is in a lot of countries. So a lot of our focus was on how in fact we could support youth participation. So some of the recommendations were around that and schools etc so there's awareness of what the electoral process is and more importantly that individuals participate through their voting.
