Elections and political parties in Tuvalu scale of the 15 seat parliament, Tuvalu has no political parties, meaning that the political system in Tuvalu exhibits the traits of a Non-partisan democracy. During the time Tuvalu was a British dependency the parliament was called the House of the Assembly or "Fale I Fono". Following independence in October 1978 the House of the Assembly was renamed the Parliament of Tuvalu or "Palamene o Tuvalu". As a consequence of the Ellice Islands self-determination referendum, 1974, separation occurred in two stages. The Tuvaluan Order 1975, which took effect on 1 October 1975, recognised Tuvalu as a separate British dependency with
Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands comprised over an area of of sea. The latter area was comparable in size to the continental United States. The water area is about 2% of the Pacific Ocean. The population of the islands was 200,000 in the latter part of the 19th century. The population decreased to 100,000 by 1969 due to emigration, war, and disease. At that time, the population inhabited less than 100 out of 2,141 of the Marshall, Mariana, and Caroline Islands. In 1947 the Mariana Islands' Teacher Training School (MITTS), a normal school serving all areas of the Trust Territory, opened in Guam. It moved