[1][2][3] Since the previous election in 1970, the main African nationalist groups had changed their strategy and gone into exile in Zambia (and to a lesser extent Mozambique and Botswana), launching a war to overthrow white minority rule by force.

The multi-racial Centre Party, which had provided the main opposition at the previous election, nominated a single candidate (who was from an Indian background).

The most marginal seat was clearly Salisbury City, where a right-wing Rhodesian Front candidate Ted Sutton-Pryce faced Dr Ahrn Palley, an Independent ex-member of the House of Assembly who had been a lone white opponent of UDI.

At the byelection on 5 August 1976, Adam Hove was elected to replace him; Benjamin Panga Mbuisa and Twyman Mafohla Sibanda were unsuccessful candidates.

The Land Tenure Amendment Bill of 1977 was highly controversial among Rhodesian Front MPs who objected to the opening of some areas previously designated for Europeans to African ownership.

They were Reginald Cowper, Dennis Fawcett Phillips, Richard Hope Hall, Robert McGee, John Newington, Peter Nilson, Gordon Olds, Ian Sandeman, Rodney Simmonds and Ted Sutton-Pryce.