Colin Eglin - Mounting Parliamentary Opposition To Apartheid

Mounting Parliamentary Opposition To Apartheid

In February 1975, UP liberal leader Harry Schwarz was expelled from the party along with several others, who formed the Reform Party. The two parties, which shared an anti-apartheid ideology, entered into negotiations to merge, which resulted in the creation of the Progressive Reform Party in July 1975. Eglin was elected leader after Schwarz agreed not to stand for the leadership and was appointed Chairman of the National Executive. He became leader of the Progressive Federal Party in 1977, following a merger with the Committee for United Opposition that had also broken away from the United Party. Eglin was the leader of the official Opposition 1977-79. He was replaced as leader by Frederik van Zyl Slabbert in 1979, when Eglin became Shadow Foreign Minister, a post he would hold until 1986.

From 1986-88 Eglin was again party leader, following the resignation of Slabbert. He was official Opposition leader until 1987, when the right-wing Conservative Party became the official opposition party. Zach de Beer took over as leader of the Progressive Federal Party in 1988. The party merged with other groups to become the Democratic Party in 1989 and then the Democratic Alliance in 2000.

Eglin continued to serve in the segregated House of Assembly until it was abolished in 1994 and then in the multi-racial National Assembly in the Parliament of South Africa until he retired in 2004.