Northern Rhodesia the election with the Federal party that their voters would vote for the other's candidates in some "national" constituencies, Nkumbula agreed to work in a coalition which had Kaunda as Prime Minister, and the two and their parties worked in reasonable harmony until a pre-independence election on 1964 where, with a much wider franchise, the United National Independence Party gained 55 of the 75 parliamentary seats. The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was formally dissolved on 31 December 1963, and the country became the independent Republic of Zambia on 24 October 1964, with Kaunda as President. Source: Whitaker's Almanack The
Northern Rhodesia discuss local affairs in English. In 1948 the Federation changed its name to the Northern Rhodesia Congress and Godwin Mbikusita Lewanika, who had an aristocratic Barotse background, became its first president. In the late 1940s several local trade unions representing African miners merged to form the Northern Rhodesian African Mineworkers' Union. Under Mbikusita Lewanika, Congress gradually developed as a political force. It had some radical policies, but Mbikusita Lewanika favoured gradualism and dialogue with the settler minority. In 1950 and 1951 he failed to deliver a strong anti-Federation message and in 1951 Mbikusita Lewanika was voted out of office and