26 Feb 2008

Nominations for Tonga election about to close

8:31 pm on 26 February 2008

Registrations close tomorrow for Tonga's elections and expectations are for a record number of candidates.

The Kingdom will vote for nine People's Representatives on April 24th.

This is to be the last election ahead of reforms to be place from 2010 and our Tonga correspondent, Mateni Tapueluelu, says many prospective MPs are running this year to raise their profiles.

"Just talking to the current People's Representatives, they believe that a lot of candidates would want to expose themselves now and when political reform does happen they already have some public exposure. When that happens the Government has promised to increase the number of People's Representatives in Parliament and therefore it will benefit a lot people if they want to get into Parliament by then."

Nine nobles are to be selected on the same day but the nobility does not have a nomination process.