Changing Their Minds: Tradition and Politics in Contemporary Fiji and Tonga (review)

The controversial prodemocracy movement (PDM) significantly lost ground in the general election held in March 1999. Its leaders had expected that its endorsed candidates would sweep the floor to gain at least seven, if not all nine, of the commoner parliamentary seats. Instead, four of the commoner seats went to newcomers who are involved in commerce, finance, church, and philanthropic community affairs. The results shocked the prodemocracy movement, which on 30 October 1998 had changed its name to the Tonga Human Rights and Democracy Movement (THRDM). Only a small minority of its leaders and supporters have ever fully understood or favored the concept of democracy, but most of them want greater popular representation and public accountability. As it turned out, only five of the nine commoners elected could be said to favor political change along the lines advocated by the movement. A rethinking of its strategy is clearly called for. The radical newspaper Taimi 'o Tonga concluded from the results, "Interesting political speeches are not enough. Accomplished hard work is what the public demands" (TOT, 16 Mar 1999, 3). The two are not incompatible. Several THRDM supporters were returned, acknowledging the respect gained in the community by their continued advocacy.

The reasons for the voter swing would seem to lie as much in what has not been happening within the political economy as what has. The private sector struggles vainly to reach the growth potential promised by the government in the face of the cabinet's continued failure to encourage overseas investment or implement fiscal changes, despite the minister of finance's attempts at tariff reform. The failure of the king to appoint a new prime minister following Baron Vaea's resignation over a year ago has left the country still wondering who will be the next senior minister. This situation reinforces the sense of political stasis, particularly in view of the stalemate that is widely believed to exist between the king and the crown prince regarding the future basis of recruitment to cabinet. The prince concentrates on his business affairs while his younger brother, Lavaka-Ata-'Ulukalala, has assumed the ministerial posts that he held. In such a situation, the people may have come to accept that changes in the government structure will not be forthcoming in the foreseeable future, certainly in the lifetime of the present monarch. Instead, as before the advent of the prodemocracy movement, they tend to look toward "big man" types of business figures who might be able to kickstart the sluggish economy and advance the cause of prosperity. Currently, the possibility of increased opportunities for jobs and income is to most people far more attractive than political rhetoric.

Despite the Tonga Human Rights and Democracy Movement's failure to gain the majority of seats, Akilisi Pohiva was returned once again as the number 1 people's representative for Tongatapu, demonstrating the high regard his reformist stance has brought him. Though he polled a substantial 8,554 votes from a voter turnout of just over 14,000 in the main island group, his margin of victory was nevertheless not as large as in the previous election (in which he scored a landslide 9,149 votes); for, coming in strongly at his first appearance with 6,298 votes to take second place in Tongatapu, was Dr Fred Sevele, a highly respected and long-established entrepreneurial businessman. Close on his heels, with only 143 votes fewer, was a greater surprise: the return of another newcomer, 'Esau Namoa, a younger and more recently successful businessman, as Tongatapu's number 3 representative. The trend continued in the other island groups. In Vava'u, a long-time representative, the reformist lawyer Paasi was displaced, and William Harris, who had just retired from senior government office as secretary of the Ministry of Labour, Commerce, and Industries, became number 1 people's representative. A local businessman, Vaipulu, beat Koliniasi 'Afuha'amonga, a sometime-professed THRDM...