1921 Referendum on Southern Rhodesia admission to the USA

[Warthog]

The fact there was a referendum about that in their history already was the joke. Never mind.

All this talk of referenda pushed me into thinking about the 1921 Southern Rhodesia referendum, presided over from London by Winston Churchill and from Salisbury by Resident Commissioner Crawford Douglas Douglas-Jones, both of whom favoured incorporating the colony into the Union of South Africa.

The rejection of union with the USA resulted in what is now Zimbabwe not becoming part of South Africa - which is both an extremely good and extremely bad thing.

It's an interesting POD. It is interesting to consider the influence that Zimbabwean polity of the 30s onwards would have had on South Africa. It would have finished Malan easily - but after that?

Masotsha Ndhlovu, George Nyandoro and of course Joshua Nkomo in the ANC too... or would Zimbabwean black nationalists have been separatists too?

 

[Oppo]

This means that Jan Smuts will have a much better shot at a Greater South Africa. While I don’t think he’d get Southern Mozambique from the Portuguese, the High Commisson Territories and Botswana could be the next to join.

Smuts had planned to bring Eastern Europeans to South Africa after the Soviets took over. With more territory, a larger population, and no Apartheid, South Africa could very well be a major player on the world stage.

 

[Warthog]

There would still be racial discrimination in law, but somewhat diluted, especially if the high commission territories were joined

 

[Warthog]

Let's take a look at the electoral politics: in OTL, Smuts' United Party lost the 1948 SA elections to DF Malan and the Nats:

United 65​

HNP 70​

The 1946 general election in Southern Rhodesia pitted Godfrey Huggins United Party (no relative) against Jacob Smit's Southern Rhodesia Liberal Party and two factions of the Labour Party

United 13​

Liberal 12​

Labour - Macintyre 3​

Labour - Davies 2​

In OTL, Huggins remained prime minister with the support of the Labour parties and Smit led an ultra-racial conservative opposition, because of course that's what a party called Liberal would do.

If we are to combine these we get

1. United - United 78
2. HNP - Liberal 82
3. Labour - Labour 5

This would give Smuts a majority if he had support from both Labour Parties -they would definitely not have supported the HNP - Liberal axis due to their position on black enfranchisement.

More likely, if Southern Rhodesia had been adsorbed into the USA they would have redone constituency boundaries, as the Rhodesian ones were smaller (in population, not area, tisn't Queensland) than the South African ones - but if this were done it would favour Smuts in South Africa, as the United Party won the popular vote by 524,230 to 401,834.

Of course it is silly to imagine that the same parties and election results would exist 27 years after the POD, but I think it gives a vague idea of political inclinations...

 

[Warthog]

Just realised the thread title doesn't say what country this was in, so i have canged to be misleading in a different way

 

[Warthog]

Let's take a look at the electoral politics: in OTL, Smuts' United Party lost the 1948 SA elections to DF Malan and the Nats:

United 65​

HNP 70​

The 1946 general election in Southern Rhodesia pitted Godfrey Huggins United Party (no relative) against Jacob Smit's Southern Rhodesia Liberal Party and two factions of the Labour Party

United 13​

Liberal 12​

Labour - Macintyre 3​

Labour - Davies 2​

In OTL, Huggins remained prime minister with the support of the Labour parties and Smit led an ultra-racial conservative opposition, because of course that's what a party called Liberal would do.

If we are to combine these we get

1. United - United 78
2. HNP - Liberal 82
3. Labour - Labour 5

This would give Smuts a majority if he had support from both Labour Parties -they would definitely not have supported the HNP - Liberal axis due to their position on black enfranchisement.

More likely, if Southern Rhodesia had been adsorbed into the USA they would have redone constituency boundaries, as the Rhodesian ones were smaller (in population, not area, tisn't Queensland) than the South African ones - but if this were done it would favour Smuts in South Africa, as the United Party won the popular vote by 524,230 to 401,834.

Of course it is silly to imagine that the same parties and election results would exist 27 years after the POD, but I think it gives a vague idea of political inclinations...

or if we use the 1948 Southern Rhodesian election results, we get

• United 24
• Liberal 5
• Labour 1

Which would give us

1. United 65 (Smuts) + 24 (Higgins) = 79
2. HNP (Malan) 70 + Liberal (Smith) 5 = 75
3. Labour (Keller) 1

 

[Bolt451]

Just realised the thread title doesn't say what country this was in, so i have canged to be misleading in a different way

Yeah I thought that. I thought "this is a bit far fetched!"

 

[OwenM]

Let's take a look at the electoral politics: in OTL, Smuts' United Party lost the 1948 SA elections to DF Malan and the Nats:

United 65​

HNP 70​

The 1946 general election in Southern Rhodesia pitted Godfrey Huggins United Party (no relative) against Jacob Smit's Southern Rhodesia Liberal Party and two factions of the Labour Party

United 13​

Liberal 12​

Labour - Macintyre 3​

Labour - Davies 2​

In OTL, Huggins remained prime minister with the support of the Labour parties and Smit led an ultra-racial conservative opposition, because of course that's what a party called Liberal would do.

If we are to combine these we get

1. United - United 78
2. HNP - Liberal 82
3. Labour - Labour 5

This would give Smuts a majority if he had support from both Labour Parties -they would definitely not have supported the HNP - Liberal axis due to their position on black enfranchisement.

More likely, if Southern Rhodesia had been adsorbed into the USA they would have redone constituency boundaries, as the Rhodesian ones were smaller (in population, not area, tisn't Queensland) than the South African ones - but if this were done it would favour Smuts in South Africa, as the United Party won the popular vote by 524,230 to 401,834.

Of course it is silly to imagine that the same parties and election results would exist 27 years after the POD, but I think it gives a vague idea of political inclinations...

Doesn't this leave out the Afrikaner Party and the SA Labour Party?
I think that would give HNP-Liberal-Afrikaner a majority, though if they remove malapportionment that would help as you say.

 

[Warthog]

Doesn't this leave out the Afrikaner Party and the SA Labour Party?
I think that would give HNP-Liberal-Afrikaner a majority, though if they remove malapportionment that would help as you say.

As far as I can find out, SA Labour didn't win any seats in 1948 but the Afrikaner party got 9. Will rework

 

[OwenM]

As far as I can find out, SA Labour didn't win any seats in 1948 but the Afrikaner party got 9. Will rework

Wikipedia has 6 for Labour, I don't know if that's right.

 

[Warthog]

Wikipedia has 6 for Labour, I don't know if that's right.

Thanks @OwenM
I need to compare with my other source

 

[Warthog]

If I use the Wikipedia figures I have

1. United - United 78
2. HNP - Afrikaner - Liberal 91
3. Labour - Labour - Labour 11

Using 1948 figures for southern Rhodesia

1. United - United 79
2. HNP - Liberal - Afrikaner 84
3. Labour - Labour 7

 

[Warthog]

Clearly, my original estimation Malan is finished was overoptimistic on unadjusted numbers - need to put some time into figuring out what would actually happen in those 27 years...

Of course, I still have my arseniferous timeline to defeat Malan in the USA... must finish that and post it since I'm on leave from tomorrow

 

[Makemakean]

Oh, you mean that other USA. Ah.

Here I was expecting some sort of strange timeline where Robert Mugabe ends up the perpetual Senator from Zimbabwe.

 

[Thande]

What would happen to Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland in this scenario? Would they eventually be eaten as well, or something else? Would somebody at the Colonial Office try to unify them with Tanganyika or is that going a bit far?

 

[Warthog]

What would happen to Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland in this scenario? Would they eventually be eaten as well, or something else? Would somebody at the Colonial Office try to unify them with Tanganyika or is that going a bit far?

There was no real pressure from the colonials or London to get beyond the Zambezi... this predates the Cental African Federation (which was kind of an alternative)

 

[Warthog]

What would happen to Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland in this scenario? Would they eventually be eaten as well, or something else? Would somebody at the Colonial Office try to unify them with Tanganyika or is that going a bit far?

Would be interesting though

 

[Warthog]

Oh, you mean that other USA. Ah.

Here I was expecting some sort of strange timeline where Robert Mugabe ends up the perpetual Senator from Zimbabwe.

If we can figure out how it would be classic!!

 

[Juan Vogel]

Would be interesting to see how Southern Rhodesia ends up in this, given that the oft repeated criticism of the federation was that it was a project designed to improve the south over the northern bits