Obituary

By Pesi Fonua

The reign of His Majesty King George Tupou V, 2006-12, was the shortest of any of the monarchs of the Tupou Dynasty, since King Siaosi Tupou I ascended to the throne as the 19th Tu'i Kanokupolu in 1845.

King George Tupou V, however, has been a mover and a shaker of Tonga's political, social and economic life, since he entered the civil service in 1970 as Crown Prince Tupouto'a at the age of 22 years. Three years later in 1973, Tonga regained its full independence from Britain by ending a Protectorate Treaty that it had kept with Britain since 18 May 1900. During the 73 years that Tonga was a British Protectorate state, all of Tonga's relations with foreign powers were conducted under the sole advice of the British government.

Before the young Crown Prince Tupouto'a joined the civil service in 1970, he had completed post-graduate diplomatic studies at Oxford University, and had spent three years at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, so it was no coincidence that he became Tonga's first Minister of Foreign Affairs and Defence in 1979, and took charge of the portfolios that had previously been surrendered under the Protectorate Treaty to the British.

During the next 19 years from 1979 to 1998 Tonga's foreign relations expanded, and today Tonga has high commissioners in London, and Canberra; and ambassadors in New York and Beijing. The Tonga Defence Services has also expanded. Tongan soldiers have served in Iraq, and TDS contingents are still serving in Afghanistan and in Solomon Islands.

Crown Prince Tupouto'a retired from the Civil Service on 5 May 1998.

In an interview with the Matangi Tonga magazine for his 50^th birthday on 4 May 1998, the Crown Prince explained: "Twenty eight years in the civil service is long enough. Put it this way . . . if I have achieved all the objectives that I set out to do, it is time to retire. If I have not achieved all the objectives that I set out to do in 28 years, then I should retire anyway for incompetence, because you must be pretty stupid not to achieve anything in 28 years. Either way, I think I should retire."

During the 28 years the Crown Prince was the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Defence, he was the chairman of the Tonga Electric Power Board, the Tourism Advisory Board and the Tonga Water Board. He was also the chairman of the boards of the MBf Bank, the Royal Beer Company Ltd., the Sea Star Fishing Company Ltd., the Shoreline Power Ltd., and the Shoreline Property Ltd.

Responding to concerns that his involvement in business created a conflict of interests, he agreed, and said, "Yes, with conflict of interest I try very hard, but people are always looking for somebody to blame and, really, I never wanted to have chairmanship, but it was just that no one else would do it.

"The  constitution does not say that government owed me a job," he said.

"I looked forward to reaching this age and seeing many more young people branching out on their own, setting up their own businesses, and flourishing, but they seem a bit timid for some reason, I don't know why," he told Matangi Tonga.

The Crown Prince's retirement lasted seven years, until 10 September 2006, when his father, Taufa'ahau Tupou IV passed away in New Zealand.

23^rd Tu'ikanokupolu

On 11 September 2006 King George Tupou V ascended the Tongan Throne as the 23^rd Tu'ikanokupolu, but his coronation did not take place until nearly two years later on 1 August 2008.

King George, after seven years of retirement was back at the helm, and he was ready to navigate Tonga through a political, economic and social reform that was officially starting to unfold during the reign of his father.

He agreed that among the principal political reforms that Tonga needed was the transfer of all executive power from the King in Privy Council to Government, and a Parliament with a majority elected by universal suffrage, and an independent Judiciary. But King George perceived that to implement these and other changes, rapidly and peacefully, was a monumental challenge.

The King appreciated that "in order to bring about the required changes and retain the popular support of moderate opinion it was necessary to neutralize and dissipate the power and appeal of radicalism," before it had an opportunity to undermine the new democracy.

The King understood that the components of change were dissatisfaction, inquiry, planning, and implementation. The new governmental system adopted by the parliament, he believed, was one that preserves the indivisibility of the Crown, and adopts a principle of the unity of power, rather than the separation of powers, which was seen as a republican inspired system.

As King George endeavored to bring the final pieces of reform into play, he wrote about this principle of "unity of power", which provides two methods of legitimising Government actions, "Legislation, and the exercise of The Royal Prerogative".

In January 2012 he demonstrated his power of consent over legislation by withholding his Royal Assent to the Arms and Ammunitions (Amendment) Act of 2011.

Toward the end of 2011 it had become known that the King was unwell, when it was announced in September that he had undergone successful surgery in the United States to remove his right kidney, which was found to contain a significant tumour.

The King returned to Tonga for a few weeks, and then left in November 2011 for medical checkups, followed by extensive travels to unreported destinations, before making a last reported visit to the Pope on February 24 in the Vatican City in Rome.

King George Tupou V was never to return to Tonga to complete his reform. In the midst of it all, the mover and the shaker of Tonga during the past 42 years, passed away in Hong Kong on the afternoon of 18 March 2012 at the age of 63 years.

Further reading: "Political Reforms in Tonga" - an unsigned paper circulated in January 2012 [2]

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