Parliament of Rhodesia | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | |
| Type | |
| Houses | Senate House of Assembly |
| History | |
| Founded | 1970 |
| Disbanded | 1979 |
| Preceded by | Legislative Assembly |
| Succeeded by | Parliament of Zimbabwe |
| Elections | |
Last House of Assembly election | August 1977 |
| Meeting place | |
 | |
| Parliament building, Salisbury | |
 |
|---|
The Parliament of Rhodesia was the bicameral legislature in Rhodesia from 1970 to 1979. Three general elections were held (namely in 1970, 1974 and 1977).
The upper chamber was called the Senate, [1] and it had 23 members: ten White Rhodesians, ten African chiefs, and three persons appointed by the President of Rhodesia. [2] The President of the Senate was the presiding officer. The Senate had only delaying powers for legislation.
| No. | President | Party | Tenure | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jack William Pithey | RF | 1970 – 1 November 1978 | [3] [4] |
| - | John Richard Strong Acting | RF | December 1978 – 29 May 1979 | [5] |
The lower chamber was called the House of Assembly, and it had popularly elected 66 members, organised in Westminster style. 50 of the members were non-Africans and 16 of the members were African. The parliamentary term was five years. The Speaker of the House was the presiding officer.
| No. | Speaker | Party | Tenure | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Col. Albert Rubidge Washington Stumbles | RF | 1970 – 31 December 1972 | [6] [7] |
| 2 | George Holland Hartley | RF | 27 March 1973 – 1979 | [7] |
Rhodesia, officially from 1970 the Republic of Rhodesia, was an unrecognised state in Southern Africa from 1965 to 1979, equivalent in territory to modern Zimbabwe. Rhodesia was the de facto successor state to the British colony of Southern Rhodesia, which had been self-governing since achieving responsible government in 1923. A landlocked nation, Rhodesia was bordered by South Africa to the south, Bechuanaland to the southwest, Zambia to the northwest, and Mozambique to the east. From 1965 to 1979, Rhodesia was one of two independent states on the African continent governed by a white minority of European descent and culture, the other being Apartheid South Africa.
The speaker of a deliberative assembly, especially a legislative body, is its presiding officer, or the chair. The title was first used in 1377 in England.
Clifford Walter Dupont was a British-born Rhodesian politician who served in the internationally unrecognised positions of officer administrating the government and president. Born in London and qualifying as a solicitor, Dupont served during the Second World War as an officer of the British Royal Artillery in North Africa before first visiting Southern Rhodesia in 1947. He returned a year later, started a ranch and emigrated full-time during the early 1950s, by which time the country had become a territory of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
John James Wrathall, was a Rhodesian politician. He was the last white President of Rhodesia. He formerly worked as a chartered accountant.
The Parliament of Zimbabwe is the bicameral legislature of Zimbabwe composed of the Senate and the National Assembly. The Senate is the upper house, and consists of 80 members, 60 of whom are elected by proportional representation from ten six-member constituencies corresponding to the country's provinces. Of the remaining 20 seats, 18 are reserved for chiefs, and two for people with disabilities. The National Assembly is the lower house, and consists of 280 members. Of these, 210 are elected from single-member constituencies. The remaining 70 seats are reserved women's and youth quotas: 60 for women; 10 for youth. These are elected by proportional representation from ten six-member and one-member constituencies respectively, corresponding to the country's provinces.
Elections in Southern Rhodesia were used from 1899 to 1923 to elect part of the Legislative Council and from 1924 to elect the whole of the Legislative Assembly which governed the colony. Since the granting of self-government in 1923, Southern Rhodesia used the Westminster parliamentary system as its basis of government. The Political party that had most of the seats in the Legislative Assembly became the government. The person in charge of this bloc was the Premier, later renamed Prime Minister, who then chose his cabinet from his elected colleagues.
Rhodesia had limited democracy in the sense that it had the Westminster parliamentary system with multiple political parties contesting the seats in parliament, but as the voting was dominated by the White settler minority, and Black Africans only had a minority level of representation at that time, it was regarded internationally as a racist country.
The Tricameral Parliament, officially the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa, was the legislature of South Africa between 1984 and 1994, established by the South African Constitution of 1983, which gave a limited political voice to the country's Coloured and Indian population groups. The majority Black population group was however still excluded, their interests notionally represented in the governments of the black homelands, or "bantustans", of which they were formally citizens. As these institutions were largely politically impotent, its principal effect was to further entrench the political power of the White section of the South African population.
A double referendum was held in Rhodesia on 20 June 1969, in which voters were asked whether they were in favour of or against a) the adoption of a republican form of government, and b) the proposals for a new Constitution, as set out in a white paper and published in a Gazette Extraordinary on 21 May 1969. Both proposals were approved. The country was subsequently declared a republic on 2 March 1970.
Jack William Pithey was a Rhodesian politician who served as the unrecognised state's Acting President between 1 November 1978 and 5 March 1979. He was also the President of the Senate of Rhodesia from 1970 to 1978 having previously been Member of Parliament for the Avondale constituency in north-west Salisbury between 1964 and 1970.
Mark Henry Heathcote Partridge was a Rhodesian politician who served as the minister of Lands and Natural Resources and Defence.
Air Marshal Archibald Oliver Garfield Wilson was a Rhodesian fighter pilot who served in the Royal Air Force during World War II. He went on to become a senior commander and then Air Marshal in the Rhodesian Air Force in the 1960s and early 1970s. After retirement, he served two terms in the Rhodesian House of Assembly, in the Zimbabwe-Rhodesian Parliament in 1979, and then in the Zimbabwe Parliament in 1981–1982. He held several cabinet portfolios prior to the Internal Settlement. He resigned in 1982 to emigrate, with his wife Lorna, to Australia's Gold Coast in 1982. He became a citizen of Australia in 1988.
Roger Tancred Robert Hawkins was a Rhodesian politician and member of Ian Smith’s cabinet in the years following Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence. He was one of the founder members of the Rhodesian Front.
Rowan Cronjé was a Rhodesian politician who served in the cabinet under prime ministers Ian Smith and Abel Muzorewa, and was later a Zimbabwean MP. He emigrated to South Africa in 1985 and served in the government of Bophuthatswana.
Queen of Rhodesia was the title asserted for Elizabeth II as Rhodesia's constitutional head of state following the country's Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom. However, the position only existed under the Rhodesian constitution of 1965 and remained unrecognised elsewhere in the world. The British government, along with the United Nations and almost all governments, regarded the declaration of independence as an illegal act and nowhere else was the existence of the British monarch having separate status in Rhodesia accepted. With Rhodesia becoming a republic in 1970, the status or existence of the office ceased to be contestable.
Richard Brathwaite Hope Hall ICD was a British-born merchant banker, businessman, and politician active in Rhodesia during the 1960s and 70s. A member of Prime Minister Ian Smith's UDI cabinet, he served as a member of parliament in Rhodesia's House of Assembly from 1965 to 1976. He began his political career as a member of the Dominion Party, and served as its chairman from 1960 to 1962. In 1962, he was a founding member of the Rhodesian Front, but switched to the Rhodesian Action Party in 1976. After unsuccessfully running for re-election in 1977, he moved back to the United Kingdom, where he lived until his death.
Lancelot Bales Smith, was an English-born Rhodesian farmer and politician. Elected to Parliament in the 1950s, he was a founding member of Rhodesian Front in 1962. He was Minister without portfolio in the cabinet of Prime Minister Ian Smith at the time of Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965. In 1968, after serving as Deputy Minister of Agriculture, he was appointed Minister of Internal Affairs, a position he held until 1974, when he exited politics.
The Leader of the Opposition in Southern Rhodesia and Rhodesia was a title held by the leader of the largest political party in the most important house of the legislature that was not in government.
David Colville Smith was a farmer and politician in Rhodesia and its successor states, Zimbabwe Rhodesia and Zimbabwe. He served in the cabinet of Rhodesia as Minister of Agriculture from 1968 to 1976, Minister of Finance from 1976 to 1979, and Minister of Commerce and Industry from 1978 to 1979. From 1976 to 1979, he also served Deputy Prime Minister of Rhodesia. He continued to serve as Minister of Finance in the government of Zimbabwe Rhodesia in 1979. In 1980, he was appointed Minister of Trade and Commerce of the newly independent Zimbabwe, one of two whites included in the cabinet of Prime Minister Robert Mugabe.