South Africa conducted general elections on May 26, 1948. They were a turning point in the history of the nation when, although gaining slightly less than half of the vote, the incumbent Prime Minister Jan Smuts and the United Party were defeated by the Herenigde Nasionale Party (HNP), led by D. Dutch Reformed minister F. Malan.
Both the UP and the HNP established partnerships with minor parties throughout the election campaign. The Afrikaner Party allied with the HNP in order to strengthen Afrikaner rights, whereas the UP supported the left-leaning Labour Party. Due to laws governing franchise requirements, only a small number of people of color and Asian descent were able to cast ballots in this election; Africans had been prohibited from voting since the late 1930s, and the few Africans who met the requirements were required to vote separately for seven “own” white MPs.
Why did the National Party win?
In the 1948 election, race was one of the major concerns that white voters had to deal with. Voters were given different responses by the United Party (UP) and the National Party (NP) to inquiries about racial integration in South Africa. Smuts and his supporters advocated for a practical strategy, contending that racial integration was inevitable and that the government should thus ease laws that attempted to stop black people from relocating to metropolitan areas. The UP advocated for progressive political system change so that black South Africans may ultimately, at some indeterminate time in the future, exercise some type of influence in a racially integrated South Africa while still trying to retain white domination.
The HNP pushed the idea of greater tightly enforced racial segregation and the complete disempowerment of black South Africans in contrast to this philosophy that appeared to be imprecise. The dread of black people taking their occupations increased among Nationalist Afrikaners, especially after World War II. Blacks’ transition from rural to urban areas was to be discouraged. The Fagan Commission backed the UP viewpoint, whereas the HNP position was influenced by the Sauer Commission. D.F. has another explanation. The National Party consistently pushed Jan Smuts to be more like the British, which contributed to Malan’s triumph. Smuts, the leader of the United Party, offered several liberal ideas more out of need than altruism in an effort to win office.
However, he was compared to the “enemy” (in this case, Britain) by the opposition, which was an attempt to scare white and Afrikaner voters into supporting Malan because of their animosity toward Britain in the wake of the mining of gold in the Transvaal region after its discovery in 1886.
Whose administration introduced apartheid in South Africa?
- W. de Klerk
| His Excellency F. W. de Klerk OMG DMS | |
| President | Nelson Mandela |
| Preceded by | Constand Viljoen |
| Succeeded by | Marthinus van Schalkwyk |
| 7th President of the National Party | |
From 1948 to 1994, what kind of government did South Africa have?
In South African history, the National Party ruled the nation’s white minority government from 1948 to 1994, and this period is known as the apartheid era.
What did the National Party do after assuming power in 1948?
The NP started enacting apartheid, the legal system of racial segregation meant to retain and expand the White minority’s dominance over politics and the economy of South Africa, as soon as it came to power following the 1948 general election.
Who was the apartheid system’s key figurehead?
However, it wasn’t until 1948, when Prime Minister DF Malan, the head of the Afrikaner Nationalist Party, came to power, that apartheid was become a formal government policy. His successors expanded on this segregationist approach.
How did the 1948 election turn out?
The Democrats successfully reclaimed control of both chambers of Congress, which they had lost in 1946, in the 1948 federal elections. As a result, Truman’s victory solidified the Democratic Party’s position as the country’s dominant party.
