National Party (South Africa)

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National Party of South Africa




Leader	n/a

Founded	1914, dissolution April 9, 2005
Headquarters	n/a

Political ideology	conservatism, Afrikaner nationalism
International affiliation	n/a

Website	n/a

The National Party (Afrikaans: Nasionale Party) (with its members sometimes known as Nationalists or Nats) was the governing party of South Africa from June 4th 1948 until May 9th 1994, and was disbanded in 2005. Its policies included apartheid, the establishment of a republic, and the promotion of Afrikaner culture.

1 Founding and ideology
2 Support
3 Decline
4 Leaders
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Founding and ideology

The National Party was founded in Bloemfontein in 1914 by Afrikaner nationalists soon after the establishment of the Union of South Africa. It first came to power in 1924, with J.B.M. Hertzog as Prime Minister. The Hertzog government worked to undermine the Coloured (mixed race) vote by granting, in 1930, voting rights to white women, but not to Coloured women, effectively halving the voting power of the Coloured electorate. In 1934, Hertzog agreed to merge his National Party with the rival South African Party of Jan Smuts to form the United Party. A hardline faction of Afrikaner nationalists, led by D.F. Malan, refused to accept the merger and maintained a rump National Party called the Gesuiwerde Nasionale Party (Purified National Party). Opposition to South African participation in World War II was used by the Purified National Party to stir up anti-British imperialist feelings amongst Afrikaners. This led to a reunification of the Purified Nationalists with the National Party faction that had joined the United Party fusion in 1934; together, they formed the Herenigde Nasionale Party (Reunited National Party), which went on to defeat Smuts' United Party in 1948.

Upon taking power, the National Party began to implement a program of apartheid — the legal system of political and social separation of the races - a policy intended to maintain and extend political and economic control of South Africa by the white minority.

In 1951, the Bantu Self-Government Act established so-called "Homelands" (sometime pejoratively called Bantustans) for ten different black tribes. The ultimate goal of the National Party was to move all Black South Africans into one of these homelands (although they might continue to work in South Africa as "guest workers"), leaving what was left of South Africa (about 87 percent of the land area) with what would then be a White majority, at least on paper. As the homelands were seen by the apartheid government as embryonic independent nations, all black South Africans were registered as citizens of the homelands, not of the nation as a whole, and were expected to exercise their political rights only in the homelands. Accordingly, the three token parliamentary seats that had been reserved for white representatives of black South Africans in Cape Province were scrapped. The other three provinces – Transvaal, the Orange Free State, and Natal – had never allowed any black representation.

Coloureds (South Africans of mixed White and non-White ancestry) were removed from the Common Roll of Cape Province in 1953. Instead of voting for the same representatives as white South Africans, they could now only vote for four white representatives to speak for them. Later, in 1968, the Coloureds were disenfranchised altogether. In the place of the four parliamentary seats, a partially elected body was set up to advise the government in an amendment to the Separate Representation of Voters Act.

In a move unrecognized by the rest of the world, the former German colony of South West Africa (now Namibia), which South Africa had occupied in World War I, was effectively incorporated into South Africa as a fifth province, with seven members elected to represent its White citizens in the Parliament of South Africa. The White minority of South West Africa, predominantly German and Afrikaans, considered its interests akin to those of the Afrikaners in South Africa and therefore supported the National Party in subsequent elections.

These reforms all bolstered the National Party politically, as they removed black and Coloured influence – which was hostile to the National Party – from the electoral process, and incorporated the pro-Nationalist whites of South West Africa. The National Party increased its parliamentary majority in almost every election between 1948 and 1977.

Various segregation laws were passed before the National Party took complete power in 1948. Probably the most significant were The Natives Land Act, No 27 of 1913 and The Natives (Urban Areas) Act of 1923. The former made it illegal for blacks to purchase or lease land from whites except in reserves; this restricted black occupancy to less than eight per cent of South Africa's land. The latter laid the foundations for residential segregation in urban areas. Segregation laws passed by the National Party after 1948 included the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, the Immorality Act, The Population Registration Act and the Group Areas Act, which prohibited nonwhite males from being in certain areas of the country (especially at night) unless they were employed there.

Another goal was achieved in 1960, when the white population voted in a referendum to sever South Africa's ties with the British Monarchy and establish a republic, which led to South Africa's withdrawal from the Commonwealth.

[edit] Support

The National Party won a majority of parliamentary seats in all elections during the Apartheid era. Its popular vote record was more mixed: While it won the popular vote with a comfortable margin in most general elections, the National Party carried less than 50% of the electorate in 1948, 1953, 1961, and 1989. In 1977, the National Party got its best-ever result in the elections with support of 64.8% of the white voters and 134 seats in parliament out of 165. After this the party's support declined as a proliferation of rightwing parties siphoned off important segments of its traditional voter base. Throughout its reign, the party's support came mainly from Afrikaners, but Anglo-Africans were courted by and increasingly voted for the National Party after 1960.

[edit] Decline

Beginning in the early 1980s, under the leadership of State President P.W. Botha, the National Party began to reform its policies. Botha legalized interracial marriages and multiracial political parties and relaxed the Group Areas Act. Botha also granted a measure of political representation to Coloureds and Indians by creating separate parliamentary chambers in which they had control of their "own affairs." Black South Africans were not included, however, and over national affairs he ensured that the white chamber of parliament retained the last word in all matters: the representatives of the white chamber had a compulsory block-vote in the electoral college to choose the State President, who had the say over which of the three chambers, or which combination of them, should consider any piece of legislation. On the central issue of granting meaningful political rights to black South Africans, Botha and the National Party refused to budge, most black political organizations remaining banned, and prominent black dissidents, including Nelson Mandela, remaining imprisoned.

In the midst of rising political instability, growing economic problems and diplomatic isolation, Botha resigned as National Party leader, and subsequently as State President, in 1989. He was replaced by F.W. de Klerk. Although a conservative, De Klerk realized the impracticality of maintaining apartheid forever, and soon after taking power, he decided that it would be better to negotiate while there was still time to reach a compromise, than to hold out until forced to negotiate on less favourable terms later. He persuaded the National Party to enter into negotiations with representatives of the black community. Late in 1989, the National Party won the most bitterly contested election in decades, pledging to negotiate an end to the apartheid system that it itself had established. Early in 1990, the African National Congress was legalised, and Nelson Mandela was released after twenty-seven years of imprisonment. A referendum in 1992 gave De Klerk plenipotentiary powers to negotiate with Mandela. Following the negotiations, a new constitution was drawn up, and multiracial elections were held in 1994. These elections were won by the African National Congress. The National Party remained in government, however, as a coalition partner to the ANC in the Government of National Unity until 1997, when it withdrew to become the Official Opposition.

In 1997, the National Party also renamed itself the New National Party in order to distance itself from its past. It lasted less than a decade before its federal council voted to dissolve the party on 9 April 2005, following a decision the previous year to merge with the ANC.