Lord Fakafanua embarked early on his political career. At age 24 he became one of the youngest Members of Parliament in Tongan history. At age 27, Lord Fakafanua assumed the role of Speaker of Parliament as the youngest ever elected by parliament to that office in Tonga and, at the time, the youngest Speaker in the world. Over the course of his political career, Lord Fakafanua has been engaged with monumental changes in the Tongan Parliament, including presiding over major political reform, and passionately advocating for greater representation for women and youth in Parliament. During his term as Speaker, Lord Fakafanua entered the Tongan Parliament into the Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) as the 164th member. In 2014 Lord Fakafanua took a break from politics to pursue further studies at the University of the South Pacific, Fiji and recently completed a Master of Arts in Diplomacy, Law and Business at the O.P. Jindal Global University, India.
Lord Fakafanua is an avid movie goer and amateur videographer having developed a keen interest in media studies since high school through to tertiary education. He has a passion for youth development, in the face of rising substance addiction, illicit drugs related issues and youth unemployment in Tonga. Beyond his political work in parliament, privately Lord Fakafanua seeks to establish high performance sports and a fledgling knowledge based economy by capitalizing on Tonga’s young demography, low regulatory framework and harnessing the power of the sun to reduce the cost of doing business in the islands.
Appreciating the power of moving images, he is in the process of developing a documentary to record and highlight the unique and infamous Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha’apai undersea eruption and tsunami that captured the world’s interest on 15 January 2022.
Lord Fakafanua has since resumed his role as the incumbent Speaker of Parliament after successfully getting re-elected in the November 2017 general elections.