Support
The National Party won a majority of parliamentary seats in all elections during the Apartheid era. Its popular vote record was more mixed: While it won the popular vote with a comfortable margin in most general elections, the National Party carried less than 50% of the electorate in 1948, 1953, 1961, and 1989. In 1977, the National Party got its best-ever result in the elections with support of 64.8% of the white voters and 134 seats in parliament out of 165. After this the party's support declined as a proliferation of right wing parties siphoned off important segments of its traditional voter base.
Throughout its reign, the party's support came mainly from Afrikaners, but Anglo-Africans were courted by and increasingly voted for the National Party after 1960.
Read more about this topic: National Party (South Africa)
Famous quotes containing the word support:
“A clergyman, again, can hardly ever allow himself to look facts fairly in the face. It is his profession to support one side; it is impossible, therefore, for him to make an unbiased examination of the other.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“What has been the effect of [religious] coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.... I now quit altogether public affairs, and I lay down my burden.”
—Edward VIII (1894–1972)