Issue No: 685; 18 April 2001

In an interview carried by today's Fiji Times, Beddoes stated:
"I feel the current attempts to unify the [ethnic] Fijians, for example, may achieve unity amongst [ethnic] Fijians, but it polarises our Fijian community on racial lines…"

"In reality the existence of multiple political parties gives the people choice and each party has to work hard to appeal to their electorate."

"Our political landscape would become more acceptable if every party was multi-racial in its composition, removing hard line racism and forcing parties to develop strategies and manifestos that address the issues and as a consequence the needs of all the people of Fiji".

"Our inherent problem is the fact that our political system perpetuates racial groupings and therefore takes the focus off the real issues."

Beddoes further stated:

"There is a perceived notion that unifying [ethnic] Fijians will somehow save [ethnic] Fijians from oblivion…. [But] it would simply polarise [ethnic] Fijians and [ethnic] Indians into their two groupings and take the focus away from the real issues once again and perpetuate the racial divide. The [ethnic] Fijians do not have the franchise on poverty, ill-health, unemployment or lack of education and neither do the [ethnic] Indians or Generals. It's a national problem that can only be resolved if we shift our focus away from race and on to the issues".

The Fiji Labour Party is the only multi-racial party in Fiji at the moment. The Fiji Court of Appeal has also recognised this in his ruling on the validity of the Constitution. Twice the Fiji Labour Party led governments have been deposed by ethnic political parties who lost elections and right wing nationalists.