RHODESIA ENDS PARTNERSHIP

Press, Volume CI, Issue 30007, 17 December 1962, Page 13

RHODESIA ENDS PARTNERSHIP

“White” Vote May Kill Federation

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

LONDON, December 16.

The victory of the “white supremacy” Rhodesian Front in the Southern Rhodesian general election has given the “kiss of death” to the policy of partnership between Africans and Europeans, informed sources said in London last night.

The Rhodesian Front, led by Mr Winston Field, a 58-year-old tobacco farmer, scored a sweeping surprise victory over Sir Edgar Whitehead’s United Federal Party in Friday’s election and is to form a new Southern Rhodesian Government.

Final results were: Rhodesian Front, 35. United Federal Party, 29. Independent, one. The Rhodesian Front stands for white supremacy and MiField's policies have been described as “polite apartheid” —but he maintained ait a press conference that this was "nonsense.” He said it would be "extremely difficult” to keep the Rhodesian Federation going in its present form. The present Federal structure had "obviously failed." Sir Edgar Whitehead told reporters it would be “very much more difficult” to preserve the federation now the Front was in power. The election result was a disappointment to political observers in London who had been hoping that the more liberal multi-racial policies of the United Federal Party would have got the support of the European electorate. The Federal Prime Minister. Sir Roy Welensky, is the national leader of the United Federal Party. The African nationalists boycotted the elections and their principal party, the Zimbawe African People’s Union, was banned. Out of more than 3,500.000 Africans in Southern Rho desia, only about 10,000 registered as voters and of these it was estimated that only about 1000 went to the polls. The elections, therefore, were decided by the votes of the 90,000 eligible Europeans out of a total of more than 225.000.

The U.F.P. fought the election on a non-racial platform and promised to preserve the Rhodesian Federation. The Rhodesian’s Front's unexpected victory came as

Northern Rhodesia announced I its first African Government. Northern Rhodesia and the African Government of Nyasaland, are both seeking secession from the federation. Economic Association The new Prime Minister told a press conference that although it would be “extremely difficult” to keep the federation in its present form, “we might go quite a long way with an economic association” of the three territories.

I Mr Field said it was "nonsense” to describe his policy as apartheid, and said of integration: “We won’t encourage it nor discourage it.” Racial discrimination in public places, he said, was a matter for the individual —in a hotel, for instance, it would be up to the owner and his clients to decide. The Front’s surprise victory has drastically altered the balance of power in Central Africa. The U.F.P. and its predecessors have governed Southern Rhodesia for 40 years. In brief, observers say, Rhodesians voted to retain white rule. Rhodesia’s future now depends on whether Mr Field’s more moderate wing of the party is dominant, or whether some of his more extreme lieutenants have control. Mr Field was born in England, and has lived in Southern Rhodesia 42 years as a farmer, running four farms. He was a major in the British Army in the Second World War. He was leader of the Dominion (Opposition) Party in the Federal Parliament and last May became leader of the Rhodesian Front. He has been in politics for 10 years.