A Winter's Tale

SOUTHERN RHODESIA A Winter's Tale "When it rains in winter a king dies," goes an old African saying. Last week, in the dead of Southern Rhodesia's cool, dry winter, the skies opened suddenly, and hail and rain swept across the rolling hills of light brown grass. That day citizens of Southern Rhodesia, going to the polls from the Limpopo to the Zambezi, voted Garfield Todd, their Prime Minister for five years until last February, into political oblivion. His United Rhodesia Party, upholding the zeal for racial "partnership" that earned him the name of "Kaffir lover" and cost him his office, failed to win a single seat.

The winner was Sir Edgar Whitehead, the sober, pipe-puffing fiscal expert and onetime Central African Federation minister to Washington, who had succeeded Todd both as Prime Minister and as head of the Southern Rhodesian division of the United Federal Party. Though considered less impulsive on racial partnership than Todd, Sir Edgar, for all his moderation, barely won. Coming up fast on the right of Southern Rhodesia politics is the white supremacy Dominion Party, which until February had only four seats out of 30 in Parliament. Last week the Dominion Party actually led the popular vote.

It was Todd party second-preference votes, switched according to new Rhodesian electoral rules after the first count to one of the two leading contenders, that finally gave Sir Edgar's United Federal candidates their edge in four crucial constituencies. Result: United Federal, 17 seats; Dominion Party, 13 seats.

Todd, onetime Churches of Christ (Disciples) missionary, had angered many of the country's 175,800 whites by widening the franchise and job opportunities for the 2,380,000 blacks. Said Todd after the election, "I always estimated the illiberal outlook in this country as one-third of the population. Now it seems to be 50%. That's a sinister thing." Victorious Sir Edgar Whitehead indicated that his forces had studied the election returns. He announced that the reforms opening the voting rolls to some 10,000 Africans would stay, but certain unskilled jobs would continue to be reserved for poor whites as he had pledged during the campaign. "Restrictions have existed here since the beginning," said Sir Edgar. "You can't disregard race in this country."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.