Tonga's Crown Prince Tupouto'a 'Ulukālala's, second left, at the South Pacific Defence Ministers' Meeting in Auckland last week. Photo: Facebook / Richard Marles MP
Tonga's Crown Prince Tupouto'a 'Ulukālala's presence with the Tonga delegation at last week's South Pacific Defence Ministers' Meeting in Auckland has further fuelled concerns over a ministerial row initiated by the country's Palace Office.
The office let it be known early this year that King Tupou VI considered the cabinet posts of defence and foreign affairs were for him to appoint not Prime Minister Hu'akavameliku Siaosi Sovaleni.
There were resignations from the cabinet, but there have been no statements since.
Meanwhile, the Palace Office has taken the Public Service Commission to court over its failure to endorse the royally appointed secretary to Foreign Affairs.
RNZ Pacific asked Tonga correspondent, Kalafi Moala, what is going on.
(The transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.)
Don Wiseman: The drama over who is filling these roles seems to have been going on for some time, but at the Defence Minister's conference in Auckland last week, the Crown Prince was there. Does that make him now the Defence Minister? Has that been formalised?
Kalafi Moala: Well, it has not been announced or at least formalised, but he's the one that's functioning as a foreign minister.
DW: As a foreign minister or defence minister?
KM: The word that I get [in Tonga] is [the Crown Prince is] a foreign minister. But you notice that the man who accompanied him, Fielakepa, who is the commander of the Defence Force, was with him. The way it looks, the Crown Prince is the foreign minister, and Fielakepa is being groomed to be the defence minister.
DW: Do you think the palace has got to come clear with the public and tell them just what's going on?
KM: This is a very frustrating situation for us because we're seeing things that are happening. You're asking questions of the Palace Office as well as to the Prime Minister's Office, and nobody is talking.
DW: There were no issues during the Pacific Islands Forum back in August, or everything seemed to be hunky dory then, and that was very much headed by the Prime Minister, wasn't it?
KM: Yes, but I wouldn't say that things were hunky dory. The fact that the King was absent, was out of town, was a very loud message that says, 'I'm not here to share any kind of leadership with anybody else.' He was indicating his displeasure. He didn't want to participate in a situation where the Prime Minister was the leader. So that's the message that we got at the Pacific Islands Forum here. And of course, the Crown Prince was the one that opened the Forum. It's a very strange situation.
DW: What does it do to Hu'akavameliku government - this sort of undermining effect, I guess.
KM: The interesting thing is that it seems like Hu'akavameliku is more active than ever. I mean, he's going on trips, he's making arrangements, in terms of partnerships with Tonga and foreign countries, and he seems to be able to get help in terms of donor money for projects here in Tonga. So, it doesn't do anything in terms of what we're watching him doing. It just makes the public ask a lot of questions.
Clearly, there is a very strange relationship between the King and the Prime Minister. Nobody can doubt that, but we're waiting for word from either the Prime Minister's Office or the Palace Office. The prime minister, at one press conference was basically asked, and he just stopped - he did not respond and said, 'I'm not gonna answer that.'
DW: This was the matter, or at least one of the issues that undid 'Akilisi Pohiva's government, isn't it? Could the same happen again?
KM: I doubt it. With 'Akilisi Pohiva of course, what the King did then was he dissolved Parliament and held new elections. But I doubt if it's going to happen for this government, because when you look back in the last several years, this government is a very popular government. The perception that we get in public is here is a government that's doing something that especially not just in Tonga.
But it seems like the Prime Minister is becoming very prominent regionally. He not only led the Pacific Islands Forum here; he is going to meetings where he's speaking, and he's being respected. He was at the United Nations recently.
It doesn't look like his government is weakening in any way, but the Palace Office does look like it's weakening, because you've got the secretary there is taking the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to court, trying to argue that he's the rightful appointee to be the foreign secretary. So, there is all of this going on.