United National South West Party

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Namibia

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The United National South West Party (in Afrikaans: Verenigde Nasionale Suidwes Party, in German: Vereinigte Nationale Südwestpartei) was a political party in Namibia. It was formed through a merger of National Party of South West Africa and the South West Party, in order to counter the influence of the German League. The first congress of UNSWP was held in Windhoek on 1-2 April 1927.

The UNSWP favoured incorporation of South West Africa into South Africa.

It won the South West Africa Legislative Assembly elections in 1929, 1934, 1940 and 1945.

The main publication of UNSWP was the newspaper Die Suidwes Afrikaner.

With the coming of the National Pary of South West Africa in the late 1930s, some Afrikaners switched loyalties to the new party. Meanwhile, after 1939 the policy of the UNSWP tended to follow Gen. Smuts intead of Gen. Hertzog, in part because of the fear of a new German interest in the territory. It continued to control the Legislative Assembly until 1950, at which point it held fifteen of the eighteen seats. But the National Party had won control in South Africa in 1948, and in 1950 elections in Namibia the National Pary won sixteen seats while the UNSWP retained only two (which it lost in 1966).