Ian Campbell: Major progress achieved during 41-year reign

A King who occupies his throne for the unusually long span of 41 years cannot help but leave a deep imprint on its history, but Taufa'ahau Tupou IV was a history maker by design.

He showed himself to be so from the beginning, particularly in education, so that Tonga could be truly independent.

Tupou did not accept that his people should be backward and poor: he had the vision to imagine a future that few if any could foresee, and the strategic blindness to not see what was so obvious to more conventional people.

Not content that Tonga should be a society of peasant farmers, he urged the development of secondary and tertiary industries, which, if not always practicable, lacked nothing for imagination and boldness.

He brought Tonga into closer contact with the world through modern port facilities and air travel. He established the first modern tourist hotel and founded Tonga's first modern newspaper and broadcast radio. Tupou did not merely preside over his government's doing these things. He initiated them and pushed them to realisation.

It is no exaggeration to say that he was a revolutionary and, if he had not been born to high position, his intelligence and drive would have achieved eminence for him.

Inevitably his legacy is ambiguous. His modernisation programme aroused aspirations that could not be satisfied in Tonga.

Educated and entrepreneurial Tongans found the place too restrictive and emigrated; progressives chafed at a lack of opportunities. Contradictions were inherent in administering a society still largely traditional in its values and thinking while numbers of people with a modern, cosmopolitan outlook were increasing.

Any society that goes through rapid change finds itself facing much the same dilemma as things get out of balance, and critics have increasingly publicised the resulting imbalances and weaknesses.

Observers have been speculating for many years about a future Tonga without Tupou IV and whether liberal reform would follow, or whether a storm would break, hitherto held back only by respect for an old man.

Speculation has focused on the succession: who would succeed, and with what plans for the future.

The Tongan Constitution is quite explicit about the succession: the Crown will pass to the King's eldest son, Crown Prince Tupouto'a, who will be King Tupou V.

Tupouto'a is a controversial figure, the object in recent years of demonstrations and popular protest, garnished with rumours questioning his personal probity, the source of his wealth and whether he is a playboy or a Machiavellian schemer.

Tupouto'a has stayed silent about his political views and his goals for Tonga. As a civil servant and Cabinet member until the age of 50, he could not pursue his own course or publicise his own views.

However, in recent years his father's ill heath increasingly required him to be regent and consequently his influence in government increased. The reform of 2004 whereby elected members would be taken into Parliament is widely believed to have been his initiative.

The selection of Dr Fred Sevele as Prime Minister early this year is also believed to have been Prince Tupouto'a's choice.

In many ways, Tupoutoa is the true son of his father: intelligent, forceful, well educated, widely read and independent minded. He is reputed to be intolerant of inefficiency.

Recent and pending civil service reforms, if not initiated by him, fit into his way of thinking. They also fit the outlook of the new Prime Minister, under whose direction the momentum of reform has increased.

The immediate future offers a dynamic and bold partnership between a new King and new Prime Minister: the further modernisation of Tonga, which lost momentum during the later stages of the old King's reign, will be resumed and redirected.

Political reform as well as economic restructuring will continue, but Tupou V is unlikely to become a ceremonial figurehead as the more radical critics would like.

* Ian Campbell is professor of history at the University of the South Pacific in Suva.