Wellington - The first stage of one of the world's most unusual elections was held on Wednesday as 29 hereditary nobles in the Pacific island kingdom of Tonga voted to choose their nine representatives to the country's parliament, according to news reports from the capital Nukualofa.
Tonga's 67,000 registered "commoner"voters will cast ballots for their nine representatives out of 71 registered candidates for office on Thursday.

The 18 members elected in the two-day ballot will be joined in parliament by a cabinet of up to 16 ministers. Traditionally, 10 of these were appointed for life by the king, but the prime minister has been allowed to select some of them following pro-democracy riots in November 2006.

Voters have been hampered in assessing candidates and their policies by a government decree banning the state-owned Tonga Broadcasting Commission from interviewing those standing for election and attending their press conferences.

Eight people died in the 2006 riots which saw three-quarters of the capital destroyed by fire and five of the nine commoner representatives in the last parliament are awaiting trial for sedition after being accused of inciting the rioters.

They were among 700 people arrested and charged with offences related to the riots and 17 months later Tonga remains under a state of emergency as the royal family, nobles, government and representatives of the people try to hammer out a process of democratic reform.

Reports from Tonga say there is general agreement on the need for political change, from King George Tupou V, who succeeded when his father died in September 2006 after reigning for 40 years.

But there is little agreement on the pace and process of reforms which would reduce the royal family's traditional supreme powers and give the king a constitutional rather executive role.

The part the 33 hereditary nobles - four of the titles are currently vacant - will play under the new order is also unclear.

Tonga, which has about 119,000 people on 170 palm-fringed islands set in the Pacific halfway between New Zealand and South America, is one of the world's last feudal monarchies and one of the smallest and poorest nations.

The royal family have traditionally lived globe-trotting lives of luxury, financed by the country's meagre national income from exporting pumpkins and fish to Japan and donations from their poverty-stricken subjects who are largely financed by relatives living overseas. (dpa)