23 Aug 2007

Tonga's newest political party recruiting members

3:13 pm on 23 August 2007

A new political party in Tonga is hoping to recruit sufficient members to be able to stand candidates in all nine constituencies reserved for peoples' representatives.

The president of Paati Langafonua Tu'uloa, or PLT, is Sione Fonua, who is an Auckland-based lawyer.

Mr Fonua says he will be moving to Tonga prior to the elections next March but he says there is already a lot of support for the PLT.

He says a group of people were keen to establish a new party because there were limited options available.

"One is we want to put in an alternative, giving some more options to the people of Tonga and the second reason is that we think that we have some good ideas which we can put into our policies which will be for the benefit of Tonga as a whole."

Mr Fonua says the PLT, which is neither left nor right-wing, supports political reform but believes it may take some time.