A while ago, Doug Muir and I kicked around a scenario in which a Rhodesian Front loss in the 1962 election resulted in a gradual transition to majority rule during the 1960s and 1970s. The thread's
here, and with your indulgence, I'll repost some of my thoughts:
Consider three scenarios relating to the
1962 general election, which was the first to be held under the 1961 constitution. First, there's the one that the United Federal Party expected to happen: that they would sweep the 15 districts (which were dominated by B-roll electors) and, as the establishment party, also win a majority of the 50 constituency seats. This would enable them to outvote the Rhodesian Front regardless of what the black MPs did, and would allow them to look all liberal and multiculti while actually treating the black members much like Mapai treated its Arab affiliates during the 1950s and 1960s - an occasional bone, but no more.
The second scenario is what actually did happen. The UFP did nearly sweep the B-roll seats, but won only 15 of the constituencies dominated by A-roll electors, and as a result, the RF won an absolute majority of the parliament. Nearly half the UFP caucus was black, but because they were in opposition, the RF could safely ignore them.
But consider a third scenario. Let's say the UFP had won four more seats, for a total of 33. It would have a bare majority in parliament - or maybe a bit more than that, since Ahrn Palley (a liberal independent who took the fifteenth B-roll seat) would probably support the government - but it would
need the black MPs to stay in power. Whitehead wouldn't be able to get by with throwing them a bone - he'd have to appoint a couple of black ministers, and give the black members a real say in government.
The big sin of Whitehead and the UDF in 1962 was complacency: they were the establishment party, and except in 1946, establishment parties always won big in Rhodesia. Although the black electoral roll had been expanded considerably, they didn't do anything to get out the black vote or combat the boycott that was urged by African nationalist groups. They also didn't try to co-opt Garfield Todd's biracial Central African Party, which was contesting a few of the constituencies.
Looking at the seat-by-seat results, though, there are a few seats that could easily have flipped if the UFP had tried harder. In Matobo, the RF won by only 670-636, which could have been reversed if the B-roll turnout had been even 20 rather than 10 percent. In Eastern, the vote was 786 to 661, with 20.3 percent of the 508 B-roll voters showing up; again, the UFP could have won if the B-roll turnout were slightly more than doubled. In Bulawayo District, the RF got 702 to 575 for the UFP and 104 for Benjamin Baron of the CAP; we can assume most of Baron's votes would have gone to the UFP if he'd stood down, and there were also many B-list voters unaccounted-for.
Those three seats would be enough (the UFP would have 32 of 65, but Ahrn Palley would support them), but a vigorous campaign might also flip Bulawayo North and Salisbury Central, where there weren't many B-roll voters but where the RF's majority was 67 and 49 votes respectively.
So let's say they do it. Whitehead gets a panic attack and decides to go all-in. He wages a concerted (albeit under-the-table) campaign to get out the black vote, telling them that they may not like him much, but if they boycott, they'll get Winston Field. He offers Garfield Todd some post-election policy concessions if Baron stands down, and barnstorms the hell out of the marginal seats. It works, and the election result is a mirror image of OTL: 35 for the UFP plus Palley, and 30 for the RF.
Now the UFP is still in power and has a big IOU to pay to the black voters. But this is where the wheels come off, because Whitehead's much more timorous than Todd, and if he does too much, he'll lose the white MPs in his own party. He does push through some incremental reforms, decreasing the qualifications for both the A and B rolls to the point where ~15 percent of the A roll is black. Maybe he also appoints a black MP to a cosmetic government position and increases the profile of Africans in the civil service. But nobody's satisfied - the reforms are too much for most whites and not nearly enough for the blacks.
Come 1966, the white opposition is energized and the blacks are disillusioned. This time the black voters don't listen when Whitehead urges them not to boycott. The 15 B-roll seats go to the Central African Party or to independent nationalist candidates rather than the UFP, and the establishment party suffers a wipeout in the A-roll seats: the increased black presence on the A-roll pushes a few marginal seats Whitehead's way, but not enough to keep the RF from winning 40 seats and taking a firm majority.
The RF then tries to negotiate with Britain and, after the talks break down, goes UDI. As in OTL, the UDI government retains the existing electoral rules, which in TTL include Whitehead's amendments. This doesn't stop the RF from continuing as the ruling party,
but it has to fight for more seats rather than being overwhelmingly dominant as in OTL,
and, due to the black voters, the republic referendum is narrowly defeated. This means that the 1961 constitution, as amended, remains the default rather than switching to
de jure racial segregation under the OTL 1969 charter.
Now it's the 1970s, with the bush war in progress, the republic at a dead end, Rhodesia isolated, and the RF increasingly facing
right-wing opposition (Lardner-Burke?) due to its failure to go hard apartheid. Ian Smith was a lot of things, but he wasn't a total fool, so I'm guessing he'd respond to the right-wing opposition by tacking to the center, which would provide a window to bring in Nkomo. Talks begin in 1973 or so, and in 1975, Smith cuts a deal with Nkomo for a 50-50 parliament and a unity cabinet, with a graduated transition to majority rule over the next decade.
Where does it go from there?
