Harare small military force of the British South Africa Company, and named Fort Salisbury after the British prime minister Lord Salisbury. Company administrators demarcated the city and ran it until Southern Rhodesia achieved responsible government in 1923. Salisbury was thereafter the seat of the Southern Rhodesian (later Rhodesian) government and, between 1953 and 1963, the capital of the Central African Federation. It retained the name Salisbury until 1982, when it was renamed Harare on the second anniversary of Zimbabwean independence. Harare is Zimbabwe's leading political, financial, commercial, and communications centre, as well as a trade centre for tobacco, maize, cotton, and
2008 Zimbabwean general election not be accepted. According to Chinamasa, speaking to the press in Harare on 11 May, the newly elected MPs would not be sworn in until after the second round of the presidential election. Reportedly, twenty ZANU-PF lawmakers have joined the opposition; if that is true, they will have to face by-elections, as crossing the floor automatically causes a by-election to be called for the respective constituency under Zimbabwean electoral law. In response to the delay in the sitting of the new Parliament, the MDC held a symbolic meeting of MDC MPs at a conference center in Harare on 30 May.