The Coming of Zambia
From HARRY FRANKLIN
LUSAKA
COMPARED with revolution in Zanzibar and mutiny in Dar-es-Salaam, the press found the Northern Rhodesia elections a tame affair. Even the Russian covering for Tass—for the first time in Central African history—could scarcely have found any evidence of imperialist repression or of righteous rebellion of the masses.
On the actualidays of voting, Africans always seem to keep the peace, whatever murderous party clashes may have preceded the climax to their political fate. The police and police re- serves were out in full strength and the Northern Rhodesia Regiment was on stand-by. The beer- halls were closed and in some parts it rained heavily—rain is a great preserver of the peace. So, apart from a few stonings and a vigorous assault on a ballot box by an African lady who realised just too late that she had put her officially stamped piece of paper into the box decorated with the picture of a lion (ANC) in- stead of into the one displaying a hoe (UNIP), and tried to remedy the error, peace reigned.
A million African men and women queued cheerfully at the polling booths, most of them for the first time—happy with their new right, valuing it and determined to use it.
The verdict of the people is that the hoes have it—massively. But everybody, even the unhappy Harry Nkumbula, ANC leader and father of African politics here, knew that this would be so. His party crumbled away beneath him, as his henchmen saw where the power would lie and climbed without remorse upon the bandwagon. So, incidentally, did a considerable number of white men whose previous love for UN1P, its leader Dr. Kaunda and African nationalism in general was, until recently, deceptively concealed beneath unprintable abuse.
But this is politics, one supposes, and if it is sad for Mr. Nkumbula it is good for the country. Dr. Kaunda is immeasurably the better leader of the two--he may well prove to be the finest leader in Africa—and the best and ablest Afri- cans of the country are in his party. With over fifty of the sixty-five Main (in effect, African) Roll seats in his hands, though none of the ten Reserved (in effect, European) seats, Dr. Kaunda is very firmly in the saddle.
But Africa, as Dr. Kaunda clearly realises, is in an unpredictable stage. At his press conference he appeared strong and confident, but almost over-concentrated on the need to preserve law and order. He mentioned, non-committally, Zan- zibar and Dar-es-Salaam, and went on to warn trouble-makers and disgruntled people in Northern Rhodesia that his government would crush ruthlessly any attempt to overthrow it by unconstitutional means. 'We have sufficient forces,' he said grimly, `tio make sure that there will be no destruction of good government.'
The main interest of the eleclions lay in the ten European seats. Would the white electorate prove diehard or progressive? The whites de- cided in the main to vote for Welensky's old Federal Party, now renamed the National Pro- gress Party, to hold on to a little power for a little longer. They may have been frightened by events in Zanzibar and Tanganyika. They may not have thought much of UNIP's European candidates, who, with two or three notable ex- ceptions, were unimpressive. But I doubt if these things made much difference. Most of the Euro- pean electorate—many here today and gone to- morrow in any event—either still dimmed by Welensky's shadow OT, desperately hoping that the inevitable was not inevitable, swallowed the propaganda of NPP leader John Roberts, that ten white men could provide a noble opposition, avert a one-party State and exercise a power dis- proportionate to their numbers through appeals to the Constitutional Council now to be set up.
Mr. Roberts apparently believes that the ten reserved seats can remain a feature of the con- stitution. Nobody else with any political sense does. UN1P only agreed to them contemptuously in this interim constitution to avoid long-winded arguments at London conferences, delaying their final goal of full independence. Dr. Kaunda has stated plainly and frequently that he expects full independence in October and that this racial provision of ten seats reserved (in effect) for whites will then go.
Bravely he put up a white man and an Indian in the main roll seats and the Africans elected them both. A reciprocal gesture from Mr. Roberts would have done much good to race relations. Instead, the rejection by the white voters of a good UNIP candidate such as Sir John Moffat may do harm. Perhaps not much harm, since Dr. Kaunda himself, although hinting in his election campaign that the rejection of UNIP's European candidates would indicate the white men's rejection of his policy of non- racialism, which would hurt them and not him, is plainly not bearing malice. But some of his top men went a good deal further and their threats may not have been mere electioneering. Not all of them are enamoured of their leader's ideas about non-racialism and their pressure on Kaunda is not negligible.
Nevertheless, the portents are reasonably good. In the process of decolonisation Britain has never yet had a Congo or an Algiers. There have been disappointments and may be more yet. But Northern Rhodesia will have no excuse to be one of them and should do much to redeem them. Its civil service is still good, though not as good as it would have been if Whitehall had given more incentives to its senior officers to stay, as Dr. Kaunda wanted, and less heavily gilded bowlers encouraging them to go. Next to South Africa's gold, the North's copper is the richest prize to come out of Africa. The country has had no Mau Mau and there is therefore as little Afri- can bitterness here as is to be found anywhere in Africa. The constitution, once .the reserved seats are abolished, is a good one, with safe- guards which will at least last for some years --the Bill of Rights, the Constitutional Council and the House of Chiefs.
If UMW does not lose its head—and there are two senses to that—Northern Rhodesia, re- named Zambia, will, probably within a year, be welcomed as a fully independent republic into the arms of the Commonwealth, to which it should be a credit.
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