The Legislative Assembly of Rhodesia was the

legislature A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its p ...

Southern Rhodesia Southern Rhodesia was a landlocked self-governing British Crown colony in southern Africa, established in 1923 and consisting of British South Africa Company (BSAC) territories lying south of the Zambezi River. The region was informally kn ...

and then

Rhodesia Rhodesia (, ), officially from 1970 the Republic of Rhodesia, was an unrecognised state in Southern Africa from 1965 to 1979, equivalent in territory to modern Zimbabwe. Rhodesia was the ''de facto'' successor state to the British colony of S ...

from 1924 to 1970.

Background

In 1898, the

Southern Rhodesian Legislative Council The Southern Rhodesian Legislative Council was the inaugural governing body for the British South Africa Company (BSAC) territory of Southern Rhodesia (today Zimbabwe) before its replacement by the Southern Rhodesian Legislative Assembly in 1923, w ...

, Southern Rhodesia's first elected representative body, was founded. Much of the decisions regarding the administration of

was made by the

British South Africa Company The British South Africa Company (BSAC or BSACo) was chartered in 1889 following the amalgamation of Cecil Rhodes' Central Search Association and the London-based Exploring Company Ltd, which had originally competed to capitalize on the expecte ...

(BSAC). When BSAC rule was terminated in 1923 and Responsible Government achieved, the Legislative Council was replaced by the Legislative Assembly.Rasmussen, K. & Rubert, S. (1990) ''Historical Dictionary of Zimbabwe'', The Scarecrow Press, London. Under the Constitution, there was provision for the establishment of an

upper house An upper house is one of two Debate chamber, chambers of a bicameralism, bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the lower house.''Bicameralism'' (1997) by George Tsebelis The house formally designated as the upper house is usually smalle ...

to be known as the Legislative Council, but none was ever established, meaning that the Legislative Assembly remained a

unicameral Unicameralism (from ''uni''- "one" + Latin ''camera'' "chamber") is a type of legislature, which consists of one house or assembly, that legislates and votes as one. Unicameral legislatures exist when there is no widely perceived need for multic ...

legislature.Southern Rhodesia
''

Hansard ''Hansard'' is the traditional name of the transcripts of parliamentary debates in Britain and many Commonwealth countries. It is named after Thomas Curson Hansard (1776–1833), a London printer and publisher, who was the first official print ...

'', HC Deb 22 June 1961 vol 642 cc1696-739

Franchise

Modelled after the British

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

, the Assembly had limitations placed on its powers of legislation, as the

British Crown The Crown is the state (polity), state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, British Overseas Territories, overseas territories, Provinces and territorie ...

reserved the right to block legislation and allowed only legislation on internal matters to be discussed in the parliament. The

Letters Patent Letters patent ( la, litterae patentes) ( always in the plural) are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch, president or other head of state, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, titl ...

granting the colony the right to self-government in 1923 made no change to the pre-existing franchise. The law provided that voters must have been resident in

for at least six months, and have the ability to complete the claim form for the electoral register in their own handwriting if the registrar required, and to write from dictation 50 words in the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

. In addition, voters had to meet one of three criteria for their financial means: either occupy property worth £150 in their Electoral District, or own a registered mining claim within the colony (for which residence was not required), or receive annual salary of £100 in the colony.

Electoral procedure

No change was made to the basic electoral procedure, which continued to be the

first past the post In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...

system, cast by means of the

secret ballot The secret ballot, also known as the Australian ballot, is a voting method in which a voter's identity in an election or a referendum is anonymous. This forestalls attempts to influence the voter by intimidation, blackmailing, and potential vote ...

Electoral districts

The Letters Patent created a Legislative Assembly with 30 members, and for simplicity the 15 electoral districts set the previous year for the Legislative Council were used for the new assembly, but with each district returning two members. Voters were therefore entitled to two votes. Until 1961 there were technically no restrictions on the ability for native Africans to vote, but a high property qualification ensured that few were entitled to vote. This was altered in 1958, when a special voters' roll was created for Africans, although Africans were limited to voting for 15 Assembly members while Europeans were entitled to elect 50 members.

Election results

Southern Rhodesian Legislative Assembly, 1948

The following table reflects only those members elected from general roll electoral divisions.

References

{{reflist, colwidth=30em Legislative Assembly Historical legislatures