Herenigde Nasionale Party

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The Herenigde Nasionale Party (Reunited National Party) was the product of the reunion of Daniel François Malan's Gesuiwerde Nasionale Party (Purified National Party) and J.B.M. Hertzog's breakaway Afrikaner nationalist faction of the United Party in 1940.

In 1934, J.B.M. Hertzog had fused his National Party with Jan Smuts's South African Party to form the United Party due to pressure from the electorate in the aftermath of the Great Depression. He split away, however, because he could not tolerate the idea of entering World War II on the side of the British.

The Herenigde Nasionale Party gained popularity after the war and unexpectedly won the elections of 1948. Internationally it is known for the implementation of apartheid. In 1951 the HNP united with the Afrikaner Party, another Afrikaner nationalist party led by one of Hertzog's proteges, and reverted to the short name, the Nasionale Party (National Party), which it retained until shortly after the fall of apartheid during the 1990s.

The initials of the Herenigde Nasionale Party, HNP, were also used by a breakaway party that was established in 1969, the rightwing Herstigte Nasionale Party (Reconstituted National Party).

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