Northern Rhodesia: The First Prime Minister

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NORTHERN RHODESIA

Would the shock waves of East African revolt move inland to plague the wobbly governments of other territories? One vulnerable region was Northern Rhodesia, which is due to get its independence by year's end. But all was quiet last week as thousands of African voters flocked to the polling booths to elect Northern Rhodesia's first Prime Minister.

Outcome of the election was a fore gone conclusion: a landslide victory for Kenneth Kaunda, 39, the austere, energetic minister's son who was in turn jailed by the British and later groomed by them to take over the copper-rich protectorate. Kaunda's United National Independence Party (U.N.I.P.) captured 55 of 75 seats in the legislative assembly, crushing the demoralized African National Congress Party of hard-drinking Harry Nkumbula, Kaunda's onetime mentor.

The only disappointment for Kaunda was that U.N.l.P.'s European and Asian candidates failed to win any of the ten legislative seats reserved for non-Africans. They went instead to an all-white slate entered by the National Progress Party, headed by John Roberts, a former minister in a previous, European-dominated government, who predicted nonetheless: "Dr. Kaunda's Cabinet will be a very able one, probably the best in black Africa."

Most other observers agree. One of the most intelligent of all new African leaders, Teetotaler Kaunda, who was trained as a teacher, has staunchly forsworn violence in the ten-year struggle to dissolve the now-extinct Central African Federation, in which Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland were reluctant partners with white-dominated Southern Rhodesia. Zambia, as Northern Rhodesia will be called after independence, will be a multiracial society in which, promises Kaunda, "the rule of law shall prevail and no individual is going to be victimized because of his country of origin."

Kaunda's policy makes economic sense, since European and South African know-how is essential to the booming mining industry, which is expected to yield the government close to $70 million in taxes during its first year of self-rule. Since the country also has abundant land, ample water and few settlers, it has been largely spared the racial bitterness that has riven Kenya. However, in the wake of the uprising that came close to toppling his friend Julius Nyerere in neighboring Tanganyika, the usually affable Kaunda warned grimly last week: "We shall crush ruthlessly any attempt to overthrow this government by unconstitutional means."