Fiji’s story is a military story.
Bainimarama took power with guns in 2006 and ruled for 16 years before voters removed. Tonga’s military is tiny and loyal to the Crown (the Crown Prince is the Armed Forces Minister), and has never been a political actor. A coup is simply not how power moves in Tonga. Tonga’s courts are already biting. In 2026 alone they removed three sitting ministers for vote-buying and put an interim order on the PM over press access within three weeks of the complaint.
In Fiji, it took 17 years to get a conviction against the man at the top. Tonga’s problem is not that institutions are silent; it is that they stop at the ministers and rarely reach the top. The pressure valve is different. In Fiji, the only check on Bainimarama was the ballot box, and he suppressed the media until it finally turned.
In Tonga there is a King above the Prime Minister, a loud free press, and an active opposition. Unhealthy as it is, a petition to the King is a legitimate outlet that Fiji never had.
Where it does rhyme Concentration of Power
One man holding Police, Prisons, Finance (acting), Lands (acting) and MEIDECC is the Bainimarama pattern in miniature. Bainimarama’s two convictions were both about using the Prime Minister’s Office to lean on the Police.
The Prime Minister, Lord Fakafanua is the Minister of Police. Nobody has alleged he has misused that, but the structure invites it. Shutting critics out of the room. Barring 88.1FM and the Tonga Chronicle is a small act, but Fiji’s 2010 Media Decree started small too. The Supreme Court pushing back quickly is the good news. Money with no paper trail. The TOP$60 Million COVID fund with no receipts and a US$400 Million Passport Scheme pushed by the Prime Minister himself are the sort of things that in Fiji, only got examined after the leader fell.
My actual read – Tonga’s realistic bad path is not a Fiji-style strongman. It is quieter: a noble-led government that drifts back toward pre-2010 royal rule, with elected people’s representatives sidelined, money decisions made behind closed doors, and accountability landing on ministers but never the Prime Minister.
Call it erosion, not a coup. Whether that happens comes down to three things over the next year: whether the Anti-Corruption Commission or Auditor General ever produces a finding against someone at the top, whether the September court case sets a limit on the PM’s power over the press, and whether the King acts on the petition or sits on it. If all three go quiet, then yes, Tonga starts to look like Fiji circa 2009, just without the uniforms. One caveat: The Prime Minister, Lord Fakafanua has been in office ten months and has no charge against him. Bainimarama had 16 years and a coup.
Judging them as equals today would be unfair. Judging the pattern is fair.
