Tonga’s king sheltering on distant island
Prime Minister agrees to travel there to abase himself over insults
Tonga’s tussle between a king and a prime minister is set to become even more farcical. In a kind of irritated funk, King Tupou VI, 63, has retreated to a small island 600 kilometres north from his palace in Nuku’alofa. With just over a thousand people on Hihifo in the Niua group of the kingdom, it has a grass airstrip, no regular air service and only an occasional ship visit. Prime Minister Hu’akavameiliku Sovaleni, 53, is, apparently, now prepared to apologise to the king, but faces an age old conundrum: ‘if the mountain won’t go to Mohammed, then Mohammed must come to the mountain.’ According to Matangi Tonga publisher Pesi Fonua, Sovaleni has had Fale Alea or Parliament adjourned so that he can travel north to make peace. Given the lamentable state of the kingdom’s two-small-planes Lulutai Airline, it's perhaps time the two grown men explore the benefits of Elon Musk’s Starlink. But possibly the two don’t want to talk as the king has been at odds with the prime minister and his government for a while.
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