Smith, Nkomo are ganging up on Mugabe

Press, 25 July 1985, Page 13

Smith, Nkomo are ganging up on Mugabe

From

JAN RAATH,

in Karat e

A strange alliance has clicked into place between lan Smith, the former Rhodesian prime minister, and Joshua Nkomo, political leader of the west of Zimbabwe. Both have been branded by Prime Minister Robert Mugabe as the “undesirable elements” in Zimbabwe’s society and the stumbling blocks to his hopes of “National Unity” under a one-party state. Unless Mugabe defies the constitution, the two men and their combined political strength could beat off the one-party state and the abolition of white representation in Parliament. Nkomo has said that his Z.A.P.U. party would not support the Government on a “senseless” amendment to the constitution which would repeal the 20 white seats in the House of Assembly. “It might be better to let it run its course,” he says, referring to the two years that have yet to elapse before the constitution can be changed by anything less than the 100 per cent approval of the House. During his campaign, Smith, whose 15 out of 20 seats victory in the white elections in late June enraged Mugabe, harps on the idea of an alliance with “Nkomo and his chaps.” The two are necessary to each other, he adds. Even after 1987, when 70 votes in Parliament will be needed to

amend the white seats clause. Mugabe with his 63 seats will still face the combined 30-vote bloc of Z.A.P.U. and Smith’s Conservative Alliance of Zimbabwe. The significance of unity between Nkomo. known as “the father of black nationalism." and Smith, who fought off black rule in Rhodesia, will not be lost on Mugabe. He will exploit the image of Nkomo fighting for a system that gives the white voting population. with little more than 1 per cent of the electorate. 20 per cent of all the seats in Parliament. Smith and Nkomo are not strangers. In 1976, while Mugabe was organising guerrilla armies to overthrow the Rhodesian Government, Nkomo came to Harare for months of constitutional talks with the Rhodesians. Two years previously, while he was in detention, Nkomo signed a deal with the Rhodesian Government, accepting a constitution which would have given blacks considerably less than universal suffrage and majority rule. In the last two years in Parliament, Z.A.P.U. has voted regularly with Smith’s M.P.s against extensions of the state of emergency, under which at least three senior Z.A.P.U. officers are detained. Copyright—London Observer Service.