Editor,

Please link to this letter your editorials entitled "Tonga's choice: dictatorship or democracy?" [2] and "Fresh new parliament needs fresh new members" [3] for anyone desiring to have a crash course on why picking the cabinet from within a 26 member Legislative Assembly would pave the way for a dictatorship.

I believe that most people are making a very critical mistake of thinking of democracy as a destination and not viewing it as a process. Democracy is not a certain model or a specific type of people's representation, and this point can be proven by the fact that no two democracies in the world are the same. At the heart of democracy are principles that increase transparency and accountability, but at the same time the success of accomplishing these ideals requires an informed and participating public. I believe that democracy in Tonga's current context could best be viewed as a long and on-going process. It is a process that began with Tupou I himself, and Tupou's promulgation of Tonga's Constitution.

In this evolving process, the people of Tonga, those voted-in to be representatives of the people, and also those chosen by the King must behave ethically, or any democratic system that is set-up is bound to fail. I do believe that an important ingredient that determines ethical behaviour within a system deals with the economic situation of a country and its citizens. Since we are talking about ethics, unfortunately we have also learned from 16/11 that going to church every Sunday of the year is still not enough to make people in general behave ethically.

Most countries in the world are failed democracies, and as a result are quite chaotic. The few successful democracies in the world are pretty much limited to the rich western countries of the palangi. A country that is trying to exercise a democratic form of government, but where a majority of its citizens have a hand-out mentality (which is usually the situation in third world countries), will not create a stable and harmonious government but create chaos, as history has shown in Africa, Latin America, and even our neighbours here in the Pacific like Fiji and the Solomon Islands.

I believe that those who are currently at the forefront of the so called democracy movement are not truly for democracy and do not have the best interests of Tonga at heart. Also, I can understand why the current Monarch would want Tonga to progress to a system of government that embraces democratic principals like accountability and transparency. I have for the most part expressed this view point in previous letters to the editor which are still listed in the archives. Public participation is also a principle that is key for not just political progress but overall social and economic development, and I do believe that this is why even His Majesty the King is eager to move forward with change so as to maximize on Tonga's most important and only true resource, its people. "Brain drain" however, remains a major obstacle to Tonga's political and economic progress, along with a growing reliance of Tonga's local population on remittances which is ever leading to a lack of efficient use of local resources such as local farm land and/or other economic activities that could produce commodities.

I also believe that most people are taking the current constitution for granted and do not fully understand and appreciate it as a God inspired document. If they did truly understand and appreciate our current constitution I do believe that we would be having a different conversation today. I do believe that a more representative government with more mechanisms to increase accountability and transparency can be incorporated into our current system of government with very little changes being made to our constitution.

And about being accused of knowing better than Mr. Public, I would like to say this: the Reform Commission went around Tongatapu holding Fono's in various villages to get feedback and thoughts from the public. At one of these meetings the question was put forth to those in attendance as to what they thought was needed, or needed to be changed in the current system to make it better or more democratic. After a prolonged silence, an older gentlemen finally spoke after perhaps realizing nobody really had anything to say, "Mahalo 'oku sai ke Tu'i pe 'a Tu'i, pea tau oo 'o lotu ke lahi!". Amen to that.

So to answer Mr. Mokofisi's question, Mr. Public's silence told me everything!

How can we move to something supposedly better, if we do not know or fully understand what we currently have?

Malo e kei ma'u faingamalie,

D.K. Fale

mauitekelangi [at] gmail [dot] com

References:

Tonga's choice: dictatorship or democracy? [2]

Fresh new parliament needs fresh new members [3]