Transcript
SIALE ILOLAHIA: Since 1951, then we had, women were first allowed to vote, and first allowed to be candidates to parliament, so far we only have had eight women. Five of them were being elected by the people, and the other three have been through appointments.
JENNY MEYER: And currently in 2017 you've only got the one woman Member of Parliament, is that correct at the moment, out of 26?
SI: Yeah and this current one, she did not make it in the general election, it was a by-election. So those kind of statistics we have shared with the women in our workshop. Just to emphasise the point that it's a huge responsibility for us women. And for having them stand out, to start that process making sure that we keep on pushing. Its not just about them being voted in and being successful, its far more than that. This is us women making sure that we keep on pushing until such a time when Tonga recognises that it's no longer about the status quo of doing things the same time, the same thing every time. If we are serious about our democracy, serious about getting our society moving forwards, we need to engage more of the women so that we have a more balanced decision making system.
JM: So can I just confirm there's nine seats that are Noble seats and those are traditionally all men, is that right? So that's not really going to change in a hurry.
SI: I don't think that's going to change in a hurry because its related to our heritage system, and our Noble women don't have the titles.
JM: So its the elected seats that you're targeting, the 17 elected seats, and you've got eight women who potentially might run for those 17 seats so that's actually pretty good, you've got nearly half, if they all got in it could be really an exciting time for Tonga?
SI: But we have a couple of women that were in the workshop last week that were coming from the same constituency. So either we could encourage them to strategise a bit and find whether there are just one woman to run from one constituency, that means we kind of negotiate a bit or talk amongst ourselves and decide whether there's one particular person that has more of a potential to go. Or we could still encourage them all to run. Because this is also a way of us saying to the people in Tonga, people can run just the same as men.
Siale Ilolahia says she hopes more women wanting to stand will come to a support meeting being held later this week.