TONGA’S royal family has effectively consolidated power with the election of Lord Fakafanua as prime minister.
Fakafanua, 40, saw off rival – Dr Aisake Eke – and appears to have taken seven commoner votes in what is a major shift in loyalties since the kingdom introduced electoral reforms in 2014.
He took 16 votes to Eke’s 10. The Fale Alea (parliament) had 26 members, nine of whom are nobles and traditionally allied to the king.
Key cabinet members, including deputy prime minister Taniela Fusimalohi and Paula
Piukala, swung their support behind Fakafanua, further weakening Eke’s position.
There has been widespread speculation that King Tupou VI engineered a change in prime minister by removing his confidence in the government of Siaosi Sovaleni late in 2024.
After today’s election, the king appears to have the allegiance of the prime minister, a majority of the members of parliament and the Speaker, Lord Vaea, who is his brother 0n law.
Vaea is the brother of Queen Nanasipau’u.
In 2013 the king renamed the military from Tonga Defence Services to His Majesty’s Armed Forces, taking it under his personal command.
Tupou V – brother of the current king – oversaw constitutional amendments in 2010, allowing for 17 of the 26 members of the legislature to be popularly elected with the prime minister chosen by a parliamentary majority before the king’s approval.
The move was designed to give commoners more say in the legislature after riots in the capital, Nuku’alofa, in 2006.
Combined with the results of the recent elections and election of the prime minister, Tupou VI appears to have signaled a possible change of direction in the kingdom which had pursued greater democracy from the late 1980s until 2010.
Fakafanua has called for unity and urged members of the Fale Alea to work for the people.
He is only the second noble to become prime minister since the constitutional reforms.
Prior to the reforms, only nobles could be prime minister.
Eke will remain caretaker prime minister until Tupou VI formally appoints his replacement. Fakafanua must also select a cabinet for the King’s approval and appointment.