Former SODELPA member Mick Beddoes has appealed to the SODELPA management board to end the 16 years rule of the current government.
In an open appeal letter on his official Facebook page to SODELPA Vice President, Ro Teimumu Kepa, SODELPA President, Ratu Manoa Roragaca, SODELPA leader, Viliame Gavoka & SODELPA manangement board Mr Beddoes said “today after many years of inner turmoil, you have the entire country holding their breath to hear your decision, which will either deliver to our people a Christmas gift unlike any we have had for the past 16 years or you will knowingly condemned us all to another four more years of undeserved vindictive, bullying, corrupt, self serving, self enriching and uncaring governance.”
“While the decision to stay with the greater interest of all our people, is a ‘no brainer’ I do appreciate the need for the party to take into account the interests and aspirations of its membership, however in doing so it has to be weighed against the greater interest of our nation given we have all witnessed in broad daylight and experienced over the past 16 years the greed and self enrichment by the narrow interests of the favored few and as the voting thus far has very clearly indicated OUR PEOPLE WANT CHANGE and we as opposition political leaders are ‘obliged to deliver this’ as this is what we promised,” Mr Beddoes said.
“Need I remind you that this is the very same government who raided your home at night and took you in for interrogation because you offered to host the Methodist Church Conference, this is the same government who from 2007 to 2013 imposed more than 17 derogatory decrees against your own people, which among other things included the ‘theft’ of the name Fijian from your people by a stroke of a pen, and they banned the right of educated iTaukei students from attending and supporting their respective provincial councils,” he said.
“They have excluded your own people from Chair positions and Board Appointments by a margin of 80 percent from all government entities under the guise of ‘merit based’ appointments. When they had the opportunity to remove all these oppressive and discriminatory decrees at the time they drafted and imposed their 2013 constitution prior to the 2014 elections, they did not and it remains the law against your people today and they built in provision into the constitution that makes amendments to the constitution near impossible.
“This governments policies and deliberate discrimination against your own people has resulted your people accounting for 75 per cent of our 208,256 absolute poorest citizens, which means more than 156,192 of your own people live in absolute poverty despite owning 89 per cent of all the land and you want to even ‘consider’ talking to them?.”
Mr Beddoes said Ro Teimumu led SODELPA in the first opposition challenge that resulted in their first national platform from which to speak out and he was part of the team then.
“In that first effort in 2014 SODELPA and its Opposition colleagues received 202,650 votes to Fiji First’s 293,714, we were 91,064 short, in our 2nd effort in 2018, we increased our support level to 227,094 vs Fiji First’s 227,241 and reduced their advantage to just 147 votes, and today while we are all still trying to figure out where all the extra votes came from the latest vote tally show we are at this time 58,635 votes ahead and you Marama are once again in a position with Bill and your management board to complete the mission we all started back in 2007 and remove the cruel, vindictive, bullying, arrogant, disrespectful and uncaring Government that Fiji First is.
“I beg you Marama, Ratu Manoa and you Bill and your management Board, please do not waiver from our initial promise of change and finish the mission we started 15 years ago and end our 16 years of suffering and please give our people the Christmas Gift they all deserve.”
