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Report on the Zimbabwe Elections February 1980

1980; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 35; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1177/002070208003500404

2052-465X

Bonnie Campbell,

African studies and sociopolitical issues

In March 1978 the former leader of the white minority regime of Rhodesia, Ian Smith, declared to the international press that the co-leaders of the Patriotic Front had rejected the internal settlement of 3 March 1978 signed by his government and three African leaders, Bishop Abel Muzorewa, Chief Jeremiah Chirau, and the Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole, because they were afraid to participate in the elections which he had organized on the basis of universal adult suffrage. On 4 March 1980, after the election results showed that 77 of the 80 seats reserved for the African population of Zimbabwe had been won by the Patriotic Front, the British government made it clear that it would have no truck with those who condemned the election results as unrepresentative and unfair. Both Lord Carrington and his deputy in the House of Commons, Sir Ian Gilmour, described the elections as free and fair and said that the results represented the true feeling of the electorate. Both men were emphatic that Robert Mugabe had emerged as the clear choice of the Zimbabwean people.1 An election is an unusual step in the evolution of a struggle for national independence. Indeed, that which took place in Zimbabwe on 27, 28, and 29 February 1980 is the first historical example of such a phenomenon. It is not my intention to predict what the impact of the elections will be on the future of Zimbabwe's liberation struggle. That will depend on a variety of