Petition for electoral reform engages the House

Unwise Petition - As a follower of Christ and a student of U.S democracy, I respectfully express my dissent toward the recent petition put forth by Christians in Tonga advocating for the Prime Minister to be elected through popular vote. Their cause lacks a substantial biblical foundation and is deficient in well-thought arguments. And this is a classical example of how Christians can excessively participate in politics and cross over the boundary of their biblical mandate.

The framers of the U.S Constitution consciously refrained from endorsing the popular vote as a mechanism for selecting the President, chiefly due to its inherent potential to amplify the influence of states with larger populations, thereby permitting a concentrated dominance of select populous states.

This lesson from history is particularly relevant to the context of Tonga, where the proposed method would benefit candidates from populous constituencies in the main island while marginalizing those from the outer islands. Popular vote means no chance from outer islands' representatives to become Prime Minister.

Furthermore, the framers of the U.S Constitution were well aware of the susceptibility of the democratic process to manipulation by politicians. To mitigate this vulnerability, they established the Electoral College as a deliberative institution to allow people with expertise and discernment to safeguard the political system from undue political manipulation.

While Tonga lacks an equivalent of the Electoral College framework, the present election system is the closest we can get to Electoral College in the U.S., and the existence of the King and his Privy Council protects Tonga from the tyranny of the majority.

While the underlying motives of the petition remain inscrutable, I am compelled to speculate that it may, inadvertently or otherwise, be an endeavor to disempower the PTOA movement. In recent elections, petitioners have evidence that the majority of Tongans support the monarchy, and a popular vote would inevitably culminate in a victory for the anti-PTOA representatives to become Prime Minister.

Looking forward to the socio-political landscape, which is largely shaped and influenced by social media, it is prudent to anticipate that Generation Z voters are vulnerable to political manipulation and extreme cultural seductions. The global growth of populism which is a threat to democratic principles is worsened by adhering to popular vote as a method to select our Prime Minister.

While the contextual disparities with the U.S democratic system are undeniable, the historical experiences and insights from its development offer valuable perspectives that should not be disregarded.

As guardians of Democratic Constitutional Monarchy, we must carefully navigate political reforms not only prayerfully, but also prudently.

Seni Penitani
Nomuka