The Republican Front was a
political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...
in
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...
in the 1980s, led by
Ian Smith as the continuation of the
Rhodesian Front
The Rhodesian Front was a right-wing conservative political party in Southern Rhodesia, subsequently known as Rhodesia. It was the last ruling party of Southern Rhodesia prior to that country's unilateral declaration of independence, and the rul ...
. The name change came on June 6, 1981, as an attempt to distance itself from its policies of the past.
On July 21, 1984, it was renamed the
Conservative Alliance of Zimbabwe
The Conservative Alliance of Zimbabwe (CAZ) was the final incarnation of a party formerly called the Republican Front, and prior to that it was called the Rhodesian Front. In the immediate post-independence period, the party sought to promote t ...
. At that time the party, which had an all-white membership, asked blacks to join it and oppose the policies of the
Robert Mugabe government.
[Pollard, p. 112, 131; ''Facts on File'', 1984 ed., p. 574; "Ian Smith Invites Blacks to Join His Party," ''The New York Times'', July 23, 1984, p. A5.]
References
1981 establishments in Zimbabwe
1984 disestablishments in Zimbabwe
Conservative parties in Zimbabwe
Defunct political parties in Zimbabwe
Political parties disestablished in 1984
Political parties established in 1981
Protestant political parties
White nationalism in Zimbabwe
White nationalist parties
Right-wing parties
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