Why Is the Tongan Parliament All Male?

The Pacific’s perennial lack of female representation again became evident at Tonga’s general election last month. After a brief period in which there were two women members of Tonga’s parliament, the results of November’s election reverted the country back to having no female MPs. Tonga now joins its neighbors in Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, and the Federated States of Micronesia as Pacific Island countries holding this unfortunate status.

While 12 female candidates ran for the 17 seats in the legislature that were elected by the general public, none was victorious. Of the total votes cast in the election, the women running collectively only received just over 11 percent of the vote. The single incumbent female MP who ran for reelection, Losaline Ma’asi, received only 23 percent of the votes as she lost her seat. The other female candidate elected in the previous election in 2017 chose not to run.

Women in Tonga were given the right to vote in 1951; however, since then only six women have been elected to the country’s parliament. Part of the problem is that there are significant structural barriers within Tongan society and its parliamentary system that limit women’s political opportunities. While 17 seats in parliament are elected by the general public, the other nine seats are elected by the country’s 33 Nobles from among themselves. Given that the Nobles are all male, the nine seats are exclusively open to men.

Like other regions of the Pacific, Tonga maintains rigid gender roles and a tradition of male-centered public debate. These perceptions either inhibit women from running to be political candidates, or affect voter attitudes toward women if they do seek parliamentary seats. There may also be a lack of financial resources and less of the economic independence needed for women to pursue a political career, let alone campaign effectively. Women are still unable to own land in Tonga.

Unlike some other regions of the Pacific, girls in Tonga do not face discrimination in education, with the country’s population having a 99 percent literacy rate. Male students drop out of high school at higher rates than females, and in 2013 women surpassed men in the number of college degrees earned. Yet this has not translated into employment opportunities. The female labor force participation rate in Tonga is around 41 percent, according to World Bank data. This may prevent women from gaining the skillsets that would be useful to becoming political representatives.

Another feature of the Tongan community is that the country has a vast diaspora, mostly living in New Zealand and Australia, that is larger than the country’s resident population of around 105,000 people. These people, who may be more accustomed to seeing female political representatives are prevented from voting in Tongan elections, even if they maintain Tongan citizenship. There is pressure from the Tongan diaspora to be able to participate in elections, and given the size of the non-resident Tongan population this may have a significant effect on political representation if such changes are made.

Throughout the Pacific there are only very limited special political measures designed to increase female participation. There are some notable exceptions; for example, the three French territories in the region – New Caledonia, French Polynesia, and Wallis and Futuna – have had laws that mandate equal numbers of female and male candidates on party lists since 1999, with male and female candidates placed in alternating positions on parties lists to ensure women are actually elected.

However, such a system requires the usage of proportional representation, and not the single-member districts elected by the first-past-the-post system in Tonga. Samoa’s law that stipulates that a minimum of 10 percent of parliamentarians be women may be more applicable, although the percentage would need to be guided by the number of seats in the legislature, after a constitutional crisis was triggered in Samoa earlier this year when only 9.8 percent of elected representatives were women.

The other option is reserved seats for women in parliament. This remains a controversial process because women elected in this manner can often be seen to be lacking legitimacy. Yet, the counterargument is that it gives women a platform to demonstrate their capabilities where social expectations might otherwise prevent them from being able to do so. It also allows societies to become more accustomed to seeing women in positions of authority, changing social attitudes over time.

The hope must be that the men who have just been elected to parliament understand the importance of these issues for the overall social health of Tongan society, and use this new parliament to implement provisions to make sure that it is the country’s last all male parliament.