Election Day

Today is election day here in Tonga. For Tongans it's a genuinely exciting time as there has never been a democratic election, that in effect, actually means something.

Tonga has traditionally been a constitutional monarchy ruled by a King who has delegated land rights to a group of "elite" nobles who have also had a massive say in how the country was run. This is about to come to an end as, while Tongans have actually voted in elections before, this time round the constitution has changed and it is now feasible for popularly elected representatives to run the country.

Up until this election the structure of the Tongan parliament was:

• 34 members of parliament - nine elected by the people and the rest elected by The King and the Nobles.
• The Prime Minister was elected by the King and would, mostly, be in the job for life.

This effectively meant the "politicians" elected by the nobles and the King could form a 25-9 majority in Parliament. So even if the "common" politicians wanted to make legislative change, they didn't have a hope in the world.

Now the structure of the Tongan parliament will look like this:

• 26 members of parliament - 17 elected by the people and nine elected by the Nobles (10 reps from Tongatapu, two from Ha'apai, three from Vava'u, one from Eua and one from the Niuas).
• The Prime Minister will now be elected by the 26 representatives and form a minority Government of 11 ministers plus him/herself (there will more than likely not be a Tongan Julia Gillard). This however presents challenges as to pass any legislation the ministers would have to get support from "Opposition" politicians. Something that will no doubt not be easy and could lead to a few stalemates.

While all this seems positive, it has taken some time and Tongans generally don't know what to expect. Four years ago there were riots here in Tonga where close to half of the capital Nuku 'Alofa was burnt down. When you ask Tongans why this happened, you tend to get the stock standard response to questions in general of shrugged shoulders and a mumbled "I don't know".

However, some people say it was a response to rising unemployment and rising Chinese migration (who the Tongans thought were taking all the jobs) or, a frustrated, violent call for democracy. I asked some work colleagues if that was the case, and, if there could be more riots again after the elections, "maybe", said one of the coaches here from Fiji, "but it would only happen if one guy in particular didn't get in, so we'll see".

For the month or so I have been here you couldn't go five minutes down the street without seeing banners and posters for candidates. The local newspapers have been full of interviews with candidates and the local TV channel devoted all night (from about 6pm onwards) to monologues from candidates. Candidates would get in front of the camera and talk for about 30 minutes about their policies and history, I assume.

I also think every Australian volunteer here knows someone who is a candidate for the election. Here at the TFA, the former Secretary-General (who has been banned from footballing duties for three years by FIFA on corruption/ethic charges regarding the World Cup voting scandal), the current Secretary-General and also the Vice President are all running for election.

The above appeared to be the level of campaigning until about four days ago when during training we heard loud music, people screaming, clapping and singing and car horns going off. It turned out to be supporters of our Secretary-General (the current one) parading down the street in a sequence of six or seven trucks trying to drum up support for their candidate.


I thought this might be a one-off, but that night half asleep in my hammock I heard the same thing again, this time the candidate himself (the candidate for our local area) was on top of the truck with R&B music booming, people screaming and shouting around him and the candidate himself shouting down a megaphone (I assume he was shouting out his policies but who knows). This has repeated itself throughout the island and reminds me less of political campaigning but more of what Danish school students do to celebrate finishing school - hire a truck, play some music, pack the back of the truck full of eskies and beer and drive round town screaming and shouting at everyone - or the Mardi Gras in Sydney.

This shot and the one above was taken at about 8pm at night, I could hear the music a few blocks away.

It is pretty bizarre, but also quite cool at the same time. I think it would be good to see Julia on the back of a ute with a bunch of people singing and dancing around her (maybe with "I like Big Butts and I cannot lie" playing in the background), while she shouted down a megaphone.

This went on until literally 9am yesterday morning - there was a 24hr blackout period here where all campaigning had to stop one full day before the election. We were woken up by a procession of people going down our street at 645am yesterday morning with someone shouting down a megaphone and the Billfish anthem "Let's go to Africa" booming in the background. If I was Tongan that candidate would have lost my vote there and then!

It will be interesting to see what happens but the sense here is that everyone is happy their democratic time has finally come and after voting (it seems everyone here is using having to vote as an excuse to have most of the day off) that everyone can just get on with life.

The Amaaaaazing Race from last weekend - Team orange, clearly best dressed

Dinner - Lobsters going for AU$4 each!