Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Fiji’s Beddoes to join budding SDL

Posted at 22:50 on 31 January, 2013 UTC

In Fiji, the president of the now disbanded United People’s Party says Mick Beddoes says he plans to join the proposed Social Democratic Liberal Party.

Mr Beddoes wound up his party last week after the regime imposed a decree whose terms made it unlikely that it could re-register within the prescribed period ending in two weeks.

He was the opposition leader in the parliament shut down in the 2006 military coup and is now poised to join the successor party of the formerly ruling SDL.

The SDL was also disbanded last week because the decree rendered its Fijian acronym illegal.

Former SDL members now plan to launch a new party with the same acronym, but call it the Social Democratic Liberal Party.

Mr Beddoes says he plans to join the party as a financial member in Nadi.