The RF had fifteen founding principles, which included the preservation of each racial group's right to maintain its own identity, the preservation of "proper standards" through a policy of advancement through merit, the maintenance of the Land Apportionment Act, which formalised the racial imbalance in the ownership and distribution of land, opposition to compulsory racial integration, job protection for white workers, and the practice of Christianity. Historians have generally defined the party as conservative and wanting to maintain white Rhodesian interests by staunchly opposing majority rule, which the RF argued (citing other post-colonial African nations as examples) would lead to a collapse in economic development, law and order, and the emergence of a communist regime in Rhodesia. The party also encouraged the emigration of whites from other African former colonies to Rhodesia.[15] In contrast to the South African National Party, the RF allowed for democratic opposition and did not advocate social apartheid (under the RF, marriage, relationships and intermingling between whites and non-white persons was possible and legal, albeit uncommon). However, under the country's electoral system following the UDI, the black electorate voted on smaller and separate electoral rolls, meaning that the white electorate still held outsized influence. The RF wanted to continue the maintenance of the government's right to provide separate amenities for different races, such as education and public sector resources, and maintained an all-white membership, which resulted in it facing accusations of racism from both within Rhodesia and abroad.[16]
Ian Smith and the RF claimed that they based their policies, ideas, and democratic principles on merit and "not on colour or nationalism." The party also claimed that a system of merit and separate economic advancement would ultimately result in an "equal partnership between black and white" as an alternative to majority rule.[17] In 1977, the party had a schism in which the more hardline wing broke off to form the Rhodesian Action Party (RAP), which opposed Smith's proposals to negotiate a settlement with black nationalist leaders.
In the elections leading to the country's independence in 1980, as the Republic of Zimbabwe, the RF won all 20 parliamentary seats reserved for whites in the power-sharing agreement that it had forged. On 6 June 1981, the party changed its name to the Republican Front, and on 23 July 1984, it became the Conservative Alliance of Zimbabwe (CAZ) and opened its membership to Zimbabweans of all colours and all ethnic groups.[18] Eleven of its 20 parliamentarians defected over the following four years, but the party again won 15 of the 20 parliamentary seats reserved for whites in the 1985 election. In October 1987, the ruling government of Robert Mugabe officially abolished all reserved seats for whites.[19] When these were abolished many white MPs became independents or joined the ruling ZANU–PF party.
Rhodesians Never Die, Godwin, P. & Hancock, I., 1995. Baobab Books, Harare, Zimbabwe.
Pollard, William C. A Career of Defiance: The Life of Ian Smith, Agusan River Publishing Co., 1992. Topeka, KS.
McLaughlin, John . "Ian Smith and the Future of Zimbabwe," The National Review, October 30, 1981, pp. 2168–70.
Facts on File, 1984 ed., p. 574.
References
^Lipschutz, Mark R.; Rasmussen, R. Kent (1989). University of California Press (ed.). Dictionary of African Historical Biography. p. 265.
^Leaver, John David (2006). "Multiracialism and nationalisms: A political retrospective on 1950s Southern Rhodesia ('Colonial Zimbabwe')". Journal of Third World Studies. 23 (2): 167–188. JSTOR45194313.
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