South African Labour Party

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South Africa

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The South African Labour Party was a professedly socialist party representing the interests of the white working class. The worldwide depression after the end of the First World War had led to a strike in South Africa, which had been defused through a combination of military force and negotiation with the out-gunned unions, earning Jan Smuts the enmity of the labour vote. This paved the way for an election agreement between the Labour Party and the National Party in 1924, which resulted in a 1924-1929 coalition government by the two parties.