United Peoples Party (Fiji)

The United Peoples Party was a minor political party in Fiji. It represented mainly General Electors and multiracial people, and claimed to follow moderate, centrist policies. From 2001 it was led by Mick Beddoes, the sole member elected from the party to the 71-member House of Representatives in the general election.

The party was dissolved in January 2013.

The party, originally called the United General Party, was formed in the late 1990s by a merger between the General Voters Party and the General Electors Association, formerly the All National Congress (ANC). This followed an earlier move in which ethnic Fijian members of the ANC had left to join the Fijian Association Party. Both groups were fragments of the old Alliance Party, the party which ruled Fiji from 1967 to 1987.

In 2003, the party announced a drive to broaden its base to attract support from Fiji's major ethnic communities, indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians. On 2 August, Beddoes announced a decision to rename the party. The name "General" was associated with Fiji's minority communities, he said, and the party wanted a more inclusive name. The party's general secretary, Bruce Rounds, said on 2 November that a growing number of people from all ethnic groups had expressed interest in joining the party, and it had decided, in principle, to field candidates in all 71 constituencies in the general election expected to be held in 2006. The 2004 name change is one step the party has taken to recast itself as a multiracial party.

The United Peoples Party has been a vocal critic of the government's legislation to establish a Reconciliation and Unity Commission, a proposed tribunal with the authority (subject to presidential approval) to compensate victims and pardon perpetrators of the coup d'état which deposed the elected government in 2000. Calling the proposal a recipe for disaster which would create a "legal framework" to pardon, at will, anyone convicted of coup-related offence, party leader Mick Beddoes said on 16 May 2005 that it would lead to the prevalence of the law of the jungle and would license any would-be political activist who wanted to engage in coups, to do so. He accused the government of pandering to its junior coalition partner, the Conservative Alliance, to which many of those convicted of coup-related offenses belong. On 14 June, the party announced the beginning of a Yellow Ribbon Campaign to promote a petition aimed at forcing the bill to be withdrawn, or at least significantly amended. On 17 June, Beddoes accused Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase of lying about widespread public support for the bill, claiming that the "small group of dissenters" that the Prime Minister said existed were, in fact, the minority who knew what the bill contained. He said that asking the Fijian people to support the legislation without making them aware of its contents was "a deliberate attempt to mislead the Fijian community."

...
Wikipedia