National Party (South Africa) - Apartheid

Apartheid

Upon taking power in 1948, 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 1959, 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 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 unrecognised 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.

Numerous segregation laws had been passed before the National Party took power in 1948. Among 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, which restricted black occupancy to less than eight percent of South Africa's land. The latter laid the foundations for residential segregation in urban areas. Apartheid 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.