Mick Beddoes

Mick Malcolm Millis Beddoes, widely known as Mick Beddoes, is a Fijian politician and businessman from Nadi, who led the United Peoples Party (formerly the United General Party) from 2000 to 2013, and was the Leader of the Opposition at the time of the military coup of 5 December 2006. He was also the Chief Executive of the World Netball Company, and was Chairman of the organising committee for the 2007 World Netball Championships, but announced his resignation on 24 January 2006, citing a possible conflict of interest, as his company would be working as a ground operator during the championships.

Beddoes won the West Central General Electors Communal constituency, one of three reserved for ethnic minorities, for the United General Party in the 2001 parliamentary election. Despite being the sole parliamentary representative of his party, he served as Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2004, because Mahendra Chaudhry, leader of the Fiji Labour Party (the main opposition party) refused the position, demanding inclusion in the Cabinet instead. Beddoes relinquished the role of Opposition Leader late in 2004, when Chaudhry finally gave up his quest for a Cabinet role and agreed to assume the leadership of the Opposition.

Beddoes's first stint as Opposition Leader gave him and his tiny party a national platform. In mid-2003, Beddoes responded to rising interest among indigenous and Indo- Fijians by announcing that membership of his party, which had been confined to minority groups like Europeans, Chinese, and Banaban Islanders, would now be open to all races, and that the party would contest all 71 seats in the House of Representatives in the next parliamentary election, scheduled for 2006.

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