Royal rulers feel breeze of democracy

By THERESA GARNER

NUKU'ALOFA - Slowly, doubled over with arthritis and using two canes, King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV climbs into the royal box in the Methodist church for the Sunday service.

It is a rare public glimpse of the octogenarian monarch, whose twilight years are being blighted by a plague of insolence his forbears would never have dreamed possible.

His daughter, Princess Pilolevu Tuita, sits as straight as a board in the front pew, her ladies-in-waiting on their haunches on the floor in front of her.

One fans the hot breeze up the peach satin royal dress, another swipes the air to cool the royal face.

The royal family have a lot to look forward to - a wedding this week, church celebrations this month and, on July 4, the King's 85th birthday.

But the events have been overshadowed by international reaction to the King's attempts to stifle the press and put the kingdom's laws above judicial review.

The family's ancestor, Taufa'ahau, was such an admirer of the British monarchy that he renamed himself George I.

And his dynasty shares with the Windsors the scandals, the rebellious children, the disappointing marriages, the heir's frustration at the monarch's longevity, media interest and the reproof of a public no longer solely adoring.

In Tonga, as in England, the best-loved royal is no longer alive to enjoy the honour.

After the service, the King is whisked away in his black Chevrolet limousine past the grave of his mother, Queen Salote, who died nearly 40 years ago but still looks proudly over her people from portraits and photographs on walls in businesses and homes.

She was never subject to the outrage of an international audience appalled at actions which highlight the monarch's absolute rule.

To add injury to insult, the person now winning the hearts of the people is a commoner.

" 'Akilisi is the man!" This endorsement of pro-democracy MP 'Akilisi Pohiva comes from Joe Naeata, a 34-year-old Tongan who earns a living taking tourists around the main island of Tongatapu.

Pohiva is responsible for planting ideas of democracy in the minds of a nation where children grow up believing the King is anointed by God.

Pohiva heads the first family of democracy. His daughter, Laucala, is a journalist at the banned newspaper Taimi o Tonga. Son Pooi is with the Human Rights and Democracy movement.

Pohiva says that in 15 years, the democracy movement has grown from nothing. He says it was not easy to change fundamental beliefs that had been there for centuries.

"But compared to elsewhere, Tonga has been much quicker."

Naeata endorses Pohiva's standing as favourite of the people.

"That is the kind of man I like. Like William Wallace in Braveheart, he showed us all the mistakes in Government, and what the ministers and royal family do."

And the King?

The King is a good man, he repeats firmly three times. But he should be like the Queen of England and have a figurehead role.

It is only in the past 20 years that anyone has dared speak about the King. Now, people talk about what is right and wrong.

In a small village on Tongatapu, neighbours Katalina Fauhiva, 26, and Pae Kata, 38, say they love the King because he is the King.





Both women say they want to be able to elect their government. But they are almost too busy to talk because they are preparing food for the royal wedding feast to be held today.

The wedding is proving tremendous gossip fodder.

Two of the bride's aunts are said to have left Tonga and flown to New Zealand in protest at the love match between Princess Salote Lupepeu'u Tuita, 26, and the son of a noble, Mata'i'ulua Fusitu'a, whose first marriage to the kingdom's beauty queen was annulled.

In this deeply Christian community, a prior marriage is a strike against the groom.

The women say their favourite royal is the outcast Maata, because he loves the people. Maata, the King's second son, married a Samoan woman rather that a daughter of a noble family as the King wanted.

Unlike his siblings, he has no official duties and his house is more middle class than mansion.

The name of his brother and heir to the throne, Crown Prince Tupouto'a, is synonymous with money and, as Tongans mutter among themselves, high prices.

Every time people in Tonga make a mobile phone call, buy a local beer or turn on a light, they are putting money in the Crown Prince's pocket.

He has apparently planned his coronation, but the people are concerned he will be too busy with business to rule effectively.

There is hope he will be more open to a democratic government.

The business-minded royal children are making a killing, but it is their father's pipedreams that have made the monarchy a laughing stock overseas.

There was the idea of using Tonga as a dumping ground for toxic waste, of burning tyres for energy, and emptying a lagoon to store Iranian oil.

Projects which did go ahead were plagued with scandal.

Among them was the unsavoury passport-selling trade from which the lucrative earnings were lost by the King's appointed court jester on an insurance scam.

With this backdrop of embarrassments, reverence for the King and respect for the hierarchal system are diminishing.

But whatever his faults, the King - Tonga's first university graduate - has blessed his people with a belief in the importance of education.

Increasingly, though, educated people complain they are left out as nobles are chosen for key roles.

Joe Naeata has one reason for supporting the pro-democracy movement.

"The King and nobles are high, and the people are low. We want it to be like in America, where people are all the same."