Hiccups in the House [1]
Wednesday, September 9, 2009 - 07:57. Updated on Tuesday, April 29, 2014 - 18:57.
By Pesi Fonua
The Tongan Parliament is making itself irrelevant to the political reform process that it set for 2010, by failing to agree on the fundamentals for a new system of government for Tonga, and at the same time has left itself out of the decision-making process of the Constitutional and Electoral Reform Commission by not meeting the July 6 deadline for submissions.
Since the Ashika Disaster on August 5, the Tongan parliament appears to have lost its sense of direction. A House Select Committee formed on August 11, with a self-imposed mandate to investigate the sinking of the ferry, was, only two days later, informed by the Attorney General that it did not have a legal right to carry out such a task.
The investigation will be carried out by Royal Commission of Inquiry to be appointed by the Attorney General.
Straight after that hiccup, the House went back to debate on the Interim Report of the Constitutional and Electoral Reform Commission that was presented to the House on June 5. The Interim Report came with an invitation from the Commission for submissions to be presented no later than July 6.
Deferred debate
Since June 5 the House had intended to put in a submission, but in order to do so it needed to agree on some fundamental reform principals, such as the composition of a new parliament and the mechanics of a new electoral system; but as the July 6 deadline came closer it kept deferring its debate on the Interim Report.
It was August when the House finally got around to that important matter - after it was told that it could not go out and investigate the sinking of the Princess Ashika - and then the debate on reform was very aggressive and, at times, very personal.
Of the two fundamental issues that they could not agree on, firstly, was the future composition of the House. The Cabinet proposed 17 People's Representatives, nine Nobles' Representatives and four to be appointed by the King. On the other hand, some of the PRs favoured a composition of 21 PRs and nine Nobles' Representatives, leaving the king out it.
The fact that the proposed compositions would create a parliament made up of individuals with different political ideals and dominated by Cabinet Ministers without a credible opposition, never even entered the debate.
Electoral System
Anyway, after days of battling with the composition, and getting nowhere, the House decided to leave the composition issue for a while and moved on to the other issue, a new electoral system. The Cabinet's proposal was for a "Single Seat Constituency Electoral System", instead of the current "Block Vote Electoral System". Again, the debate got nowhere, while the PRs, particularly the three Tongatapu PRs, feared that the Single Seat Constituency Electoral System was intended to either rob them of their seats or to reduce their importance. The issue before the House was that they were proposing to elect 21 PRs instead of only nine in order to allow more people's participation, and how they were going to do that. But it proved to be just too difficult for the House. There was even a suggestion from one of the PRs to simply leave the current electoral system as it is for the 2010 election with an intention to change it later.
Then on September 1 the Speaker read a letter from the Director of the Reform Commission informing the House that because the deadline for submissions was July 6, whatever the House might agree to during its current session, could not be made into a submission.
No input
What this means is that the House has lost the opportunity to make an input to the decision-making process of the Commission.
The real problem is that the Cabinet and the House have not agreed on the structure of the new system of government that they want Tonga to have before the election of 2010.
Because the Commission does not have a clear vision from government to guide them, it means that in November they will make their draft final recommendations of how Tonga can put a new electoral system together, based on over 70 public submissions that were presented to them by the public before July 6.
Meanwhile, as of September 7 the House was still humming away there over the composition of the new parliament and a new electoral system; and still arguing over whether it was their responsibility to agree on those fundamental issues or whether it was for the Commission to decide.
Sadly, the House is slowly making itself irrelevant to the political reform process.
The interesting point now is that the very people who have been rushing around demanding that a political reform must take place soon - even 2010 was too late for some - are going to be the very people who will slow down Tonga's democratization process, because there was no vision. It seems that the call for political change and a fully elected house were mere words with no substance.