Wellington (dpa) – Tongan King George Tupou V, a reformist who introduced democracy to his Pacific island state after 130 years of feudal monarchy, has died at the age of 63. The king, who died Sunday in a Hong Kong hospital, was monarch for less than six years but gave his nation of 106,000 people a legacy seldom dreamed of during his father's 44-year reign and his grandmother Queen Salote's 47 years on the throne before him. As Crown Prince Tupouto'a when his father ruled, he was a caricature of an eccentric, jet-setting playboy. He favored uniforms, often festooned with medals that he awarded himself, a monocle and a tropical pith helmet. He relished his time at England's Sandhurst military academy, adopted a plummy Oxbridge accent, donned a top hat with formal clothes and disdainfully criticized ordinary Tongans for their lack of culture and taste. He also derided the Free Wesleyan Church, which dominates Tongan society. When not trotting the globe to rub shoulders with the rich and famous, he was chauffeured around the capital, Nukualofa, in a pristine black London taxicab. He enriched himself by taking over state monopolies – including the power utility, domestic airline, brewery and a cellular phone company – to run as private fiefdoms. A New Zealand diplomat in Nukualofa wrote in a leaked cable at the time that he was “not at heart a true democrat. … He wants power and would prefer it undiluted.” But he was intelligent enough to see the writing on the wall and the banners reading, “Get out or we'll kick you out,” directed at his father when 10,000 people marched on his palace demanding political reform in the last year of his reign. Pro-democracy protests in the wake of his father's death in September 2006 erupted into full-scale riots, which destroyed much of the capital's central business district and killed eight people. The resulting state of emergency delayed his coronation by two years, and the new king transformed into a champion of political reform. A general election in November 2010 was hailed as a sweeping victory for democracy campaigners. They had long sought to end Tonga's traditional feudal system, under which the monarch had absolute power and appointed the prime minister and cabinet with Parliament dominated by hereditary nobles beholden to the king. But democracy is still fragile in Tonga, where the king and the nobles enjoy widespread head-bowing, traditional respect. Democracy campaigner Akilisi Pohiva claimed a landslide election victory with his Democratic Party of the Friendly Islands taking 12 of the 17 seats set aside for commoners. But the nine nobles who were guaranteed seats under the constitution persuaded five independents to join them and block Pohiva from forming a government. Pohiva turned down a ministerial post when the nobles drafted two non-elected men into the administration as ministers, rejecting his elected members. Tonga is the last monarchy in the Pacific, and its royal family is renowned for extravagant national events. Five thousands guests flew in for George V's coronation, and Pohiva was quoted on New Zealand's Stuff news website as saying the country, already crippled by debt, faced a potential financial disaster with the “enormous cost” of the king's funeral followed by the crowning of the new monarch. He was expected to be succeeded by his younger brother, Crown Prince Ulukalala Lavaka Ata, 52, whom foreign commentators criticized as an incompetent prime minister for six years after being appointed by his father. He resigned without explanation in 2006. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/RcsTv Tags: Democracy, Obituary, Tonga, Tupou V Section: Features, Latest News, Oceana
