RHODESIAN ELECTION

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28606, 7 June 1958, Page 13

RHODESIAN ELECTION

Government Party Has Lead (Rec. 8 p.m.) SALISBURY, June '6. The United Federal (Government) .Party, led by Sir Edgar Whitehead, was within two seats of winning an absolute majority in the Southern Rhodesian Parliament when the counting of votes in the territory’s General Election was resumed today. But with nine seats to be decided, the final outcome of the election was still not certain. The Federal Party had won 14 of the 30 seats in Parliament and the Dominion Party, its main rival, had won' seven. The third party contesting the election, the United Rhodesia Party, had failed to win a seat at this stage, and was out of the running. It is led by Mr R. Garfield Todd, a former Prime Minister ousted from the leadership of the Federal Party in a dispute over his views on the advance of the 2,250,000 Africans in the colony. Mr Garfield Todd is in favour of speeding up Africans’ progress, while the Federal Party, more cautious, is satisfied with the present rate. “Too Fast” The Dominion Party of Mr Ray Stockil favours white leadership of the territory and regards the current political advancement of Africans as too fast. Sir Edgar Whitehead, the Prime Minister, won his seat easily. Most of the 55,000 voters were Europeans. It was the Prime Minister’s defeat in the election on April 16 which precipitated the Genera] Election. Three members of his Cabinet. Mr Reginald Knight, Mr Cyril Hatty, and Mr Albert Stumble, were also among the victorious candidates. A fourth Cabinet member.. Mr Geoffrey EllmanBrown, was defeated. , Two of Mr Garfield Todd’s supporters after his break with the Federal Party, Mr Hardwicke Holderness and Mr Paddy Lloyd, were defeated. The election was the first under the territory’s preferential electoral system allowing voters to indicate a second choice on the ballot paper.