United African National Council

United African National Council
United African National Council
Abbreviation	UANC
President	Gwinyai Henry Muzorewa
Founder	Abel Muzorewa
Founded	1971
Headquarters	Harare
Ideology	Reconciliation; Social liberalism
Political position	Centre-left
Alliance	United Parties (1996–2000)
Colours	; Green, yellow, red, black
Party flag
	Politics of Zimbabwe; Political parties; Elections;

The United African National Council (UANC) is a political party in Zimbabwe. It was briefly the ruling party during 1979–1980, when its leader Abel Muzorewa was prime minister.

History

The party was founded by Muzorewa in 1971.^[1] Running as African National Council independents, it won six of the eight African seats in the House of Assembly in the 1974 general elections. The party was renamed the United African National Council in 1977,^[1] but did not contest the 1977 general elections.

Following the Internal Settlement of 1978, the party won the 1979 elections, winning 51 of the 100 seats, resulting in Muzorewa becoming prime minister. However, the new government failed to win international recognition due to its exclusion of the African nationalist ZAPU and ZANU in negotiations and following the Lancaster House Agreement, early elections were held in April 1980. The UANC won only three seats as ZANU–PF took power.

After failing to win a seat in the 1985 and 1990 elections, the party joined with other opposition parties to form United Parties to support Muzorewa in the 1996 presidential election, but he subsequently pulled out (albeit with his name remaining on the ballot). United Parties also unsuccessfully contested the 2000 parliamentary elections.

The party contested the 2018 general elections but received just 1,889 votes.

Electoral history

Presidential elections

Election	Party candidate	Votes	%	Votes	%	Result
Election	Party candidate	First Round		Second Round		Result
1996	Abel Muzorewa	72,600	4.80%	—	—	Lost N
2023	Gwinyai Henry Muzorewa	7,358	0.17%	—	—	Lost N

National Assembly

Election	Party leader	Votes	%	Seats	Change	Position	Result
1974	—	1,590	53.36%	6 / 100	New	2nd	Opposition
1979	Abel Muzorewa	1,212,639	67.27%	51 / 100	51	1st	Government
1980		219,307	8.28%	3 / 100	48	3rd	Opposition
1985		64,764	2.24%	0 / 100	3	3rd	Extra-parliamentary
1990		11,191	0.53%	0 / 120	0	4th	Extra-parliamentary
2000		18,606	0.75%	0 / 120	0	3rd	Extra-parliamentary
2018	Gwinyai Henry Muzorewa	1,889	0.04%	0 / 270	0	18th	Extra-parliamentary
2023	Gwinyai Henry Muzorewa	574	0.01%	0 / 280	0	13th	Extra-parliamentary