Roy Welensky

Roy Welensky, ca.1956

Sir Raphael "Roy" Welensky KCMG (born January 20, 1907 in Salisbury , South Rhodesia , † December 5, 1991 in Blandford , Dorset , United Kingdom ) was a Rhodesian politician. He was the second and last Prime Minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland from 1956 to 1963 .

Welensky, born in 1907 in poor circumstances as the son of a Lithuanian father and a Boer mother, worked from 1927 as a fire fighter and later as a locomotive driver on the Rhodesia Railways . From 1925 to 1927 he was also national champion in heavyweight boxing.

In 1933 he was transferred to Northern Rhodesia , where he quickly rose to become an influential trade union official and was elected to the local legislative council in 1938. Along with Godfrey Huggins , he was one of the most ardent supporters of the creation of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

After the founding of the federation, he was elected to the federal parliament in December 1953 and was first transport minister and then deputy prime minister in the Huggins cabinet . After Huggin's resignation in 1956, he finally took over the office of Prime Minister himself. He opposed efforts by the British colonial power to hand over government responsibility in the federation to the black majority of the population, and advocated the country's independence as a Dominion within the Commonwealth of Nations while maintaining the existing suffrage, which has a high census for the black population practically completely excluded from political participation. He could not prevent the introduction of universal suffrage in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland , the independence of these territories and the associated dissolution of the federation in 1963.

After the failed attempt to gain a seat in the South Rhodesian parliament in 1964, he withdrew from politics. He rejected the unilateral declaration of independence of Southern Rhodesia in 1965 while maintaining white supremacy, citing the lack of consent from the colonial power. In 1981 he moved to Great Britain, where he died ten years later.

literature

• R. Kent Rasmussen (Ed.): Historical Dictionary of Rhodesia / Zimbabwe (= African Historical Dictionaries. Volume 18). 1st edition. Scarecrow Press, Metuchen / London 1979, ISBN 0-8108-1187-1 .
• Roy Welensky: Welensky's 4000 Days. The Life and Death of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Collins, London 1964.
• Patrick Keatley: The Politics of Partnership. The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (= Penguin African Library. Volume 5). Penguin Books, Harmondsworth 1963.