Politics of Rhodesia - Politics in Rhodesia

Politics in Rhodesia

The Rhodesian Front's victory in the 1962 general election and the subsequent UDI were in the populist tradition of Rhodesian politics. The early history of Rhodesian politics was very much one of electoral uprisings by miners, industrial workers and farmers against the big business establishment that dominated the colony. The election of the Reform Party government led by Godfrey Huggins in 1933 had a great deal in common with the RF win in 1962. It has been argued that the racial dimension of UDI was an incidental thing. Economic recessions in the early 1930s and the early 1960s had both produced the election of populist governments committed to securing standards of living for working people (albeit, the immediate concern was for working white people). It is significant that in the 1962 election, the RF recruited a slate of black candidates to contest the district (essentially B roll) seats. Those black RF candidates obtained little support from the B roll electorate and none were elected.

Rhodesia in the UDI era never quite took on the character of a one-party state. Although the Bush War was the real political contest, there was a conventional political opposition to the RF throughout the UDI period.

The opposition came from white liberals who would contest A roll seats in general elections and from some black parties that would contest B roll seats. The main white opposition was the Rhodesia Party, associated with veteran liberal politician (and former district Assembly member) Dr Ahrn Palley. In the Rhodesia general election, 1974 Dr Palley came within 3 votes of taking Salisbury (City) from the RF. In that same election, Michael Auret took about 30% of the vote for the RP in Bulawayo (District). Auret later won Harare (Central) for the MDC in the Zimbabwe parliamentary elections, 2000.

The RP did manage to secure around 20% of the white vote nationally on a regular basis and it would pick up most of the non-white constituency votes, but the first-past-the-post electoral system meant that they never won seats in the Assembly. Widespread press censorship and government control of radio and TV inhibited opposition activity. The lack of an effective parliamentary opposition is one factor that made it difficult to end UDI when this measure had become clearly necessary.

RP activists considered that most of their support came from the business elite, the professional class and from second or third generation Rhodesians. The more recent white immigrants tended to vote overwhelmingly for the RF. It has been suggested that Rhodesia hosted a peculiar brand of white politics traceable to British working-class immigrants who during the 20th century brought their successful struggle for a generous social welfare state out to the colonies.

"My mother could not afford to pay school fees and I would not have received an education if the government of Rhodesia had not simply treated me like a special citizen and given me a free education of a very high standard."

Eddie Cross - Chairman of the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industry and Economic Secretary of the Movement for Democratic Change, 2004

The RP group did not contest the 1977 general election because many of its activists had either been taken into one or other of various forms of detention or had been forced into exile. Michael Auret was expelled from Rhodesia in 1976 and told that he would be arrested immediately if he returned. Auret was unable to return home until 1980. The Rhodesian government was never tolerant of dissent throughout the UDI period, but it became positively repressive as the final debacle approached. The liberal former Prime Minister Garfield Todd and members of his family were subject to various forms of detention and house arrest.

The final political events in white Rhodesia were the 1977 general election and the 1979 referendum on extending equal voting rights to all citizens. An extreme right wing group known as the Rhodesian Action Party ('RAP') opposed the RF in the election and campaigned for a No vote in the referendum. The RAP group favoured a continuation of white minority rule and undertaking extreme military measures in order to win the Bush War. RAP attracted significant electoral support (15% of the referendum vote).

Some non-militant black groups and individuals contested and won B roll seats (often under the title "ANC Independent"). Under the 1969 constitution, the B roll was reserved exclusively for non-Europeans. This black political grouping was one of those that participated in the 1979 'internal settlement'. Association with the UDI state and with the internal settlement carried a collaborationist stigma that would damage the credibility of the black politicians involved.