Politics
Harry Tong For Kiribati President?
It’ll be decided in February in parliament
Teburoro Tito’s reign since 1994 as President of Kiribati may end in February with a vote by the 41 members of Parliament that could put arch political rival, Dr Harry Tong, in his place.
After the December 6 run-off election, Tong, leader of the parliamentary opposition, appeared to be well placed to oust Tito.
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The election confirmed all 14 of Tong’s Boutokaan Te Koaua Party in their seats and by December 10 three of the 17 new MPs had moved to Tong’s side.
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Only seven of Tito’s supporters, including Tito and three of his cabinet ministers, survived the election, so leaving Tito weakly placed to fight for the February selection of president from a constitutionally imposed maximum of four candidate MPs.
In the main election on November 29, Tong easily won his Tarawa urban seat by collecting 3517 of 7012 votes cast. Tito, standing in one of the three other Tarawa urban seats, won 3270 votes, so just failing to hit the number in excess of 50 percent of the total vote needed to avoid contesting a run-off vote.
Ieremai Tabai, Kiribati’s first president, and another of Tito’s arch political foes, easily won one of the two Nonouti island seats by taking 592 of 1091 votes cast. Since he served two four-year terms as president, he is blocked constitutionally from holding the office again.
The run-off election results were expected to ignite a fierce campaign for the loyalty of the 14 remaining independent MPs, something to be obtained with promises of ministerial office and other advantages, and with great play on traditional family, clan and personal relationships. After the election Tito preferred to lay low and say nothing publicly.
Tong was promising a vigorous shake-up of Kiribati’s public service. He promised to eliminate deadwood, scrap controversial newspaper registration laws Tito brought in soon before the election, and embark on economic reforms including an investigation to produce an explanation of a reported A$100-million fall in the size of a national investment fund founded with revenue from a now defunct phosphate money.
The election campaign turned ugly with reports of an attempt by Tito to arrest Tong on a charge of allegedly making illegal use of the Kiribati national emblem on his election policy leaflets. Tong said the restriction on the use of the emblem applied only to commercial purposes.
The move against Tong flopped when acting Attorney-General Pole Atanraoi refused to sign an arrest warrant. A second attempt to arrest Tong failed, Islands Business was told, when a group of seven policemen dispatched to seize the Opposition leader on the eve of the election became uncertain about whose orders they were acting on.
Tong is half Chinese and also part European, trained as a physician in Fiji and later had a successful medical career in Hawaii.
During campaigning, political opponents adopted a racist tactic by urging voters against supporting a “Chinaman”.
Part of Tong’s campaign dwelt on the desirability of the presence at Tarawa of a tracking station used by China for its space research project, but claimed by critics to really be spying on an American weapon testing range at Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, to the northwest of Kiribati.
At the outset of the campaign, Tong threatened to close the station, he said, threatened Kiribati’s security. Later he modified his stance, saying that he would review an agreement with China for the station’s presence if he became president.
Tong also claimed Chinese diplomats blatantly attempted to buy support for Tito by accompanying cabinet ministers on tours to distribute gifts of money and electricity generators to outer island communities.
Kiribati’s 96,000 Micronesian people inhabit 21 of 33 islands spread across the equator. The economy is dependent on fishing and fishing licence revenue, copra, seaweed exports, foreign aid and income from a national investment fund.
