Liberalism in Zimbabwe

Part of a series on
Liberalism
History Age of Enlightenment List of liberal theorists (contributions to liberal theory)
Principles Consent of the governed Due process Democracy Economic liberalism Economic globalization Equality Gender Legal Federalism Freedom Economic Market Trade Press Religion Speech Harm principle Internationalism Invisible hand Labor theory of property Laissez-faire Liberty Negative Positive Limited government Market economy Natural monopoly Open society Permissive society Popular sovereignty Property Private Public Rights Civil and political Natural and legal To own property To bear arms Rule of law Secularism Secular humanism Separation of church and state Separation of powers Social contract Social justice Social services Welfare state Whig history
Philosophers Milton Locke Spinoza Montesquieu Voltaire Rousseau Smith Kant Turgot Burke Priestley Paine Beccaria Condorcet Bentham Korais De Gouges Wollstonecraft Staël Say Humboldt Constant Ricardo Guizot List Bastiat Martineau Emerson Tocqueville Mill Spencer Arnold Acton Weber Hobhouse Croce Cassirer Mises Ortega Keynes Collingwood Čapek Hu Hayek Popper Aron Berlin Friedman Rawls Sen Nozick Kymlicka Badawi
Politicians Jefferson Kołłątaj Madison Artigas Bolívar Broglie Lamartine Macaulay Kossuth Deák Cobden Mazzini Juárez Lincoln Gladstone Cavour Sarmiento Mommsen Naoroji Itagaki Levski Kemal Deakin Milyukov Lloyd George Venizelos Ståhlberg Gokhale Rathenau Madero Einaudi King Roosevelt Pearson Ohlin Kennedy Jenkins Balcerowicz Verhofstadt Obama Macron
Organizations Africa Liberal Network Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party Arab Liberal Federation Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats European Democratic Party European Liberal Youth International Alliance of Libertarian Parties International Federation of Liberal Youth Liberal International Liberal Network for Latin America Liberal parties Liberal South East European Network
Regional variants Europe Latin America Albania Armenia Australia Austria Belgium Bolivia Brazil Bulgaria Canada Chile China Hong Kong Colombia Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czechia Denmark Ecuador Egypt Estonia Finland France Georgia Germany Greece Venizelism Honduras Hungary India Iran Israel Italy Liberism Japan Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Mexico Moldova Montenegro Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Nigeria North Macedonia Norway Panama Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Cracovian Portugal Romania Russia Senegal Serbia Slovakia Slovenia South Africa South Korea Spain Sweden Switzerland Taiwan Thailand Tunisia Turkey Ukraine United Kingdom Cobdenism Gladstonian Manchester Whiggism United States Arizona School Classical Jeffersonian Modern Uruguay Venezuela Zimbabwe
Related topics Anti-authoritarianism Anti-communism Bias in American academia Bias in the media Capitalism Democratic Centrism Radical centrism Economic freedom Egalitarianism Empiricism Humanism Individualism Anarchist Land value tax Libertarianism Left Right Pirate Party Progressivism Sexually liberal feminism Utilitarianism
Schools Classical Conservative Cultural Feminist Equity Green Internationalist Muscular National Neoclassical Neo Ordo Radical Religious Christian Catholic Islamic Jewish Secular Social Techno Third Way
Liberalism portal Politics portal
v t e

This article gives an overview of liberal parties in Zimbabwe. It is limited to liberal parties with substantial support, mainly proved by having had a representation in parliament. The sign ⇒ means a reference to another party in that scheme. For inclusion in this scheme it isn't necessary so that parties labeled themselves as a liberal party.

The first political party in Southern Rhodesia to name designate itself as "liberal" was the Southern Rhodesia Liberal Party, founded by Jacob Smit as an opposition party against the then-dominant United Federal Party; however, besides its promotion of economic liberalism, it continued to support the white minority rule in the colony. It eventually lost representation in parliament and merged with what eventually became the conservative Rhodesian Front.

During the bush War of the 1960s and 1970s, the only centrist party that pushed for majority rule and integration of the black African majority while not veering toward militant opposition was the United African National Council, led by (Zimbabwe Rhodesia) Prime Minister Rev. Abel Muzorewa; James Chikerema, a militant leader of FROLIZI, merged his party with Muzorewa's ANC coalition, and would later become the first vice-president of Muzorewa's UANC. The reformist prime minister of Southern Rhodesia, Garfield Todd, also advocated against the Ian Smith government, for which he was detained (he also advocated against the Mugabe government, which stripped him of citizenship shortly before his death in 2002).

When black majority rule began in 1980, parliament was dominated by the ZANU-PF, a Marxist party with illiberal tendencies, with the former Rhodesian Front (renamed the Republican Front and, finally, the Conservative Alliance of Zimbabwe) representing the seats allocated to the white minority until the seats were abolished in 1987. In 1992, the CAZ met with members of other opposition parties, including the UANC and ZANU-Ndonga to form a united opposition to ZANU-PF; what resulted was the Forum Party of former Chief Justice Enoch Dumbutshena, which, while not gaining any seats by the time it fizzled out, was the first post-independence multiracial opposition party.

Non-conservative whites who had previously been forced to vote for either the nationalist socialist majority or conservative minority parties since independence for convenience purposes, in the meantime, backed non-political, multiracial civil society groups that had pressed against the land reforms and other policies pushed by ZANU-PF. These groups, galvanized by the 2000 referendum, soon organized into a political party, the Movement for Democratic Change. Led by Morgan Tsvangirai with a short-lived faction led by Arthur Mutambara, the MDC, which presses for social and political liberalism and is backed by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, soon usurped the opposition position in Parliament against the ZANU-PF. By 2008, it had achieved the majority in both houses of parliament.

Liberals in Zimbabwe have experienced persecution from the government during Mugabe's reign.

• Garfield Todd

• History of Zimbabwe
• Politics of Zimbabwe
• List of political parties in Zimbabwe