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King Tupou V 1968.
George Tupou was born on 4th May 1948, the eldest son
of Tupou IV, King of Tonga and grandson of Queen Salote,
who endeared herself to London crowds by riding in an open
carriage in the pouring rain at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Schooled in New Zealand, he studied at Oxford University before entering Sandhurst in January 1967 in Blenheim Company, Intake 42.
As crown prince of Tonga, he carried great influence and served as Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1979 to 1998. He also had substantial business interests, making him a wealthy man in his own right. In September 2006, his father died and, as is Tongan custom, there followed a six-month period of official mourning. However, George Tupou then deferred his coronation to deal with the aftermath of the pro-democracy riots, which left some 80% of the business district of the capital Nuku’alofa in ruins. After democratic elections took place in 2008, the king was finally crowned in two ceremonies. The first, on 30th July, was a traditional open-air ceremony and feast, during which 70 cooked pigs were presented to the king and 30,000 children marched in a torchlight procession. Two days later, a second, European-style, coronation was held, attended by international dignitaries and presided over by the Anglican bishop of Polynesia.
One of the king’s first pledges on the death of his father was that he would relinquish his business interests and oversee a gradual transition to full democracy. Immediately before his coronation, he vowed to be guided by the prime minister as a constitutional monarch. The official announcement stated: ‘The Sovereign of the only Polynesian Kingdom is voluntarily suspending his powers to meet the democratic aspirations of many of his people. The people favour a more representative elected parliament, and the King agrees with them’. In November, Tonga’s 101,900 citizens voted to establish a constitutional monarchy. During his reign, Tupou V also reformed his county’s honours system, making awards available to all citizens.
However, the king’s health was failing. In November 2011, he underwent surgery to remove a kidney; he died in March 2012 of leukaemia in a Hong Kong hospital. Unmarried, he was succeeded by his younger brother. The prime minister of Australia, in a message of condolence, said the late king had ‘set his country on a new course’, and the prime minister of New Zealand said: ‘his enduring legacy is the evolving democracy in Tonga’.
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