Aisake Valu Eke, the country’s former finance minister, will lead the Pacific nation until the elections in November 2025. Tonga elected a new leader by secret ballot in parliament Tuesday, two weeks after the previous prime minister suddenly resigned after a power struggle with the Pacific nation’s royal family.
Veteran politician ‘Aisake Valu Eke won 16 votes compared to his opponent Viliami Latu’s eight in Tuesday’s vote. Valu Eke, who will be sworn into office officially as prime minister in February, was first elected to parliament in 2010 and served as minister of finance from 2014 to 2017.
He will serve in office for less than a year before the South Pacific island nation of 105,000 people holds its next election in November 2025. 17 elected MPs form Parliament in Tonga, but then comes another set of nine from the nobility, hence nobly elected by a group of chiefs within the country. Two were unable to vote.
Just weeks ago, Tonga Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni resigned, following a clash with Tonga’s influential King Tupou VI, which caused speculation of a rift between the monarch and government.
Oxford-educated Sovaleni, who had served as prime minister since 2021, resigned hours before Eke was to lead a no-confidence vote against him. The Tongan parliament’s Facebook page statement said the prime minister had quit “for the good of the country and moving Tonga forward”.
