[1] The 1961 Constitution adopted a more complex system intended to extend the franchise to wider sections of the community including non-whites – but without immediately bringing white rule to an end.
The defeated United Federal Party led by Edgar Whitehead had been committed to gradual progress to majority rule.
But critics maintain that the stubborn refusal to make immediate and visible progress to majority rule in the early 1960s set in train events which are causing serious trouble in modern Zimbabwe to this day.
Primarily, the revisions erased the rights of the British Government to legislate and act on behalf of Rhodesia, and provided for further constitutional amendments on a two-thirds majority of parliament.
The early history of Rhodesian politics was very much one of the electoral uprisings by miners, industrial workers and farmers against the big business establishment that dominated the colony.
[4] The election of the Reform Party government led by Godfrey Huggins in 1933 had a great deal in common with the RF win in 1962.
It is significant that in the 1962 election, the RF recruited a slate of black candidates to contest the district (essentially B roll) seats.
The main white opposition was the Rhodesia Party, associated with veteran liberal politician (and former district Assembly member) Dr Ahrn Palley.
It has been suggested that Rhodesia hosted a peculiar brand of white politics traceable to British working-class immigrants who during the 20th century brought their successful struggle for a generous social welfare state out to the colonies.
The liberal former Prime Minister Garfield Todd and members of his family were subject to various forms of detention and house arrest.
The final political events in white Rhodesia were the 1977 general election and the 1979 referendum on extending equal voting rights to all citizens.
An extreme right wing group known as the Rhodesian Action Party ('RAP') opposed the RF in the election and campaigned for a No vote in the referendum.
The RAP group favoured a continuation of white minority rule and undertaking extreme military measures to win the Bush War.
Association with the UDI state and with the internal settlement carried a collaborationist stigma that would damage the credibility of the black politicians involved.
The end of UDI and of the Bush War were associated with an abrupt transfer of power to the insurgent backed, black political parties in 1980.
Consequently, Zimbabwe was not able to enjoy benefits of a managed transfer to democracy of the kind that took place in comparable neighbouring countries such as Botswana and South Africa.