By Pesi Fonua

Eighteen months ago Tonga introduced its first majority-elected parliament in a move to establish a more democratic system of government.

The democratization process has not been smooth and now, at the start of their second parliamentary session, it appears that our elected members are having a very difficult time trying to get the new system to work.

The Prime Minister Lord Tu'ivakano has reshuffled his cabinet ministers twice since they were sworn in on 18 January 2011; and there has also been a move to restructure the civil service. Upper echelon civil servants have found themselves suspended or their working contracts have not been renewed; while the number of chief executive officers has been reduced by half, from 26 to 13.

In parliament there has been a move to establish Standing Committees in an effort to get members of parliament to become more involved in the decision-making process, because the executive power that used to reside with the King in Council has been transferred to the Cabinet and Parliament.

Tonga has a minority system of government, and this means that because the Cabinet is a minority in the House, its decision making tends to be a consensus with all members and not by following a party line, as might be expected under different multi-party systems of government.

Now, in the midst of this great transition, members of parliament appear to be struggling to get Tonga's new system of government to work.

Motion for Vote of No Confidence

As parliament settled down to start debating on the 2012-13 budget, a group of members on Monday, June 18 submitted a motion for a Vote of No Confidence in the Prime Minister.

Now, this presents a really interesting dilemma that will test Tonga's system of minority government by consensus.

Individuals

The 17 People's Representatives of the Tongan parliament are elected as individual members representing 17 constituencies; another nine members of parliament are elected by the 33 nobles. Two ministers are brought in by the PM from outside bringing the House to a total of 28 members. However, only 26 elected members can vote in a Vote of No Confidence. The PM and his cabinet include 11 of those elected members.

But unlike a multi party system, where an opposition will seek to replace the government with an established shadow government, in Tonga a new government will obviously have to rely on the same people it has replaced to get the decision making process to work under Tonga's consensus system.

A majority of the current members of parliament were the very people who drafted and approved our new system of government, and this raises another question: Is the motion for a Vote of No Confidence therefore, a Vote of No Confidence in themselves?