Historians have generally defined the party as conservative and wanting to maintain white Rhodesian interests by staunchly opposing majority rule, which the RF argued would lead to a collapse in economic development, law and order, and the emergence of a communist regime in Rhodesia.

[16] The RF maintained an all-white membership and wanted to continue the provision of separate amenities for different races in education and public services; thusly, the party was often characterised as racist both within Rhodesia and abroad.

The Rhodesian Land Tenure Act was introduced the same year, which ostensibly introduced parity by reducing the amount of land reserved for white ownership to the same 45 million acres as for blacks: in practice, the most fertile farmlands remained in white hands, and some farmers took advantage by shifting their boundaries into black-populated territories, often without notifying others, thereby necessating government evictions.

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.