[2] The November 2010 general election was the first held under this new democratic principle; it was also the first to produce a Parliament empowered to give binding advice to the King as to the appointment of a Prime Minister.

[2] In the 2010 general elections, the Democratic Party of the Friendly Islands (DPFI), led by veteran pro-democracy activist ʻAkilisi Pohiva, had won twelve of the people's seventeen seats, with the rest going to independent candidates.

Pohiva, the MP for Tongatapu 1, had sought to become Prime Minister, but the nobles and independent people's representatives entrusted Lord Tuʻivakanō with the task of forming a government, relegating the DPFI to the status of a de facto parliamentary opposition.

[2] Considering that the reforms introduced in 2010 were merely to be viewed as a first step in the process of democratisation, the DPFI introduced a bill in October 2013 (via ʻAisake Eke, MP for Tongatapu 5) which would have empowered the people to elect the Prime Minister directly from among the twenty-six elected members of Parliament, instead of the King appointing a Prime Minister from among those members on the advice of Parliament.

[3] Nonetheless, Pohiva immediately announced that, in early 2014, his party would submit a bill for electoral reform, so that all twenty-six members of the Assembly be elected by the people.