10 Leaders | From Rhodesia to Zimbabwe -

Start	End	Period	Name
1 October 1923	28 August 1927	Rhodesia	Charles Coghlan	Sir Charles Patrick John Coghlan, KCMG (24 June 1863 – 28 August 1927), was a lawyer and politician who served as Premier of Southern Rhodesia from 1 October 1923 to his death. Having led the responsible government movement in the territory during the latter days of Company rule, he was Southern Rhodesia’s first head of government after it became a self-governing colony within the British Empire. Born, raised and educated in South Africa, of Irish descent, Coghlan moved to Bulawayo in 1900 to practise as a lawyer. He was elected to the Southern Rhodesian Legislative Council in 1908, representing the Western electoral district. Over the next decade he supported the renewal of the British South Africa Company’s royal charter to administer the Rhodesias, and opposed Southern Rhodesia’s amalgamation with either Northern Rhodesia or the Union of South Africa. He led a delegation to London to discuss responsible government in 1921, and two years later Southern Rhodesia became a self-governing colony. Coghlan sat in the Legislative Assembly as Member for Bulawayo from 1924 to his death. Coghlan was buried near Cecil Rhodes’s grave, at “World’s View” in the Matopos Hills near Bulawayo.
2 September 1927	5 July 1933	Rhodesia	Howard Moffat	Born in the Kuruman mission station in Bechuanaland (now in the Northern Cape province of South Africa), Moffat was the son of the missionary John Smith Moffat and grandson of the missionary Robert Moffat, who was the friend of King Mzilikazi and the father-in-law of David Livingstone. Howard Moffat attended St. Andrew’s College, Grahamstown in 1885.[1] After service in the Bechuanaland Border Police, Moffat moved to Bulawayo and served in the 1893 Matabele War and the Anglo-Boer War.
12 September 1933	7 September 1953	Rhodesia	George Mitchell	Born in Ayrshire in the south-west of Scotland, he emigrated to South Africa in 1889, and moved to Matabeleland six years later to work as the manager of the Bank of Africa branch in Bulawayo. In 1901 he left the bank to become General Manager of the Rhodesia Exploration and Development Company, which sought to build up propert
7 September 1953	17 February 1958	Rhodesia	Garfield Todd	Todd was born in Invercargill, New Zealand, in 1908. He was educated at Otago University, Glen Leith Theological College, and the University of the Witwatersrand. In 1932 he married Jean Grace Wilson, with whom he had three daughters.[1] Todd emigrated to Southern Rhodesia from New Zealand in 1934 as a Protestant missionary and ran the Dadaya New Zealand Churches of Christ Mission school. One of the primary-school teachers in his charge was Robert Mugabe. Though he had no formal medical training, Todd and his wife, Grace, set up a clinic where he delivered hundreds of babies and treated minor injuries. His ranch, Hokonui, was named after the hills in his home province of Southland.
17 February 1958	17 December 1962	Rhodesia	Edgar Whitehead	Sir Edgar Cuthbert Fremantle Whitehead, KCMG OBE (8 February 1905 – 22 September 1971) was a Rhodesian politician. He was a longstanding member of the Southern Rhodesian Legislative Assembly, although his career was interrupted by other posts and by illness. In particular he had poor eyesight, and wore very thick glasses, and later experienced deafness whilst in office. An ally of Sir Roy Welensky, he was Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia from 1958 to 1962. His government was defeated in the 1962 general election by the Rhodesian Front.
17 December 1962	13 April 1964	Rhodesia	Winston Field	Winston Joseph Field CMG MBE (6 June 1904 – 17 March 1969) was a Rhodesian politician who served as the seventh Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia. Field was a former Dominion Party MP who founded the Rhodesian Front political party with Ian Smith.
13 April 1964	1 June 1979	Rhodesia	Ian Smith	Ian Douglas Smith GCLM ID (8 April 1919 – 20 November 2007) was a Rhodesian politician, farmer, and fighter pilot who served as Prime Minister of Rhodesia (known as Southern Rhodesia until October 1964 and now known as Zimbabwe) from 1964 to 1979.[n 2] He was the country’s first premier not born abroad, and led the predominantly white government that unilaterally declared independence from the United Kingdom in November 1965 following prolonged dispute over the terms, particularly British demands for black majority rule. He remained Prime Minister for almost all of the 14 years of international isolation that followed, and oversaw Rhodesia’s security forces during most of the Bush War, which pitted the unrecognised white administration against communist-backed black nationalist guerrilla movements. Smith, who has been described as personifying white Rhodesia, remains a highly controversial figure
1 June 1979	18 April 1980	Zimbabwe/Rhodesia	Bishop Abel Muzorewa	Bishop Muzorewa,[2] was a Zimbabwean bishop and politician who served as the first and only Prime Minister of Zimbabwe Rhodesia from the Internal Settlement to the Lancaster House Agreement in 1979. A United Methodist Church bishop and nationalist leader, he held office for only a few months.[3]
18 April 1980	21 November 2017	Zimbabwe	Robert Mugabe	1 February 1924 – 6 September 2019. Robert Mugabe was a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987 and then as President from 1987 to 2017. He served as Leader of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) from 1975 to 1980 and led its successor political party, the ZANU – Patriotic Front (ZANU–PF), from 1980 to 2017.
24 November 2017	15 April 2023	Zimbabwe	Emeerson Munangagwa	Born 15 September 1942 is a Zimbabwean politician who has served as President of Zimbabwe since 24 November 2017. A member of ZANU–PF and a longtime ally of former President Robert Mugabe, he held a series of cabinet portfolios and was Mugabe’s Vice-President until November 2017, when he was dismissed before coming to power in a coup d’état. He secured his first full term as president in the disputed 2018 general election.