National Party (South Africa)

The National Party (NP) was a major political party in South Africa during most of the twentieth century. It was founded in 1914 by leading Afrikaner nationalists in what were then the Union of South Africa's four provinces. Under the leadership of General J.B.M. Hertzog, the NP first came to power in coalition with the Labour Party in 1924 and governed South Africa for nearly a decade. In 1933, it split into two factions: the Smelter (Fusionist) faction, which merged with the South African Party to form the United Party, and the Gesuiwerde (Purified) faction, which regrouped under the National Party label and became the United Party government's official opposition. In the election of 1948, the revitalized Herenigde (Reunited) National Party and its Afrikaner Party coalition partner unexpectedly won a majority of parliamentary seats, which enabled them to take control of the government and begin implementing the National Party's apartheid policy program. The NP remained in power from 1948 until 1994, when South Africa's first nationwide multiracial election resulted in its ouster by the African National Congress (ANC). In 1997, the NP recast itself as the New National Party, which dissolved itself into the ANC in 2005. In August 2008, the National Party emerged once again under the leadership of Juan-Duval Uys.

Founding and early history

The founding of the National Party might be traced to 1912, when then-Minister of Justice J.B.M. Hertzog came increasingly at odds with the South African Party (SAP) government over its approach to the relationship between South Africa's English-speaking and Afrikaner communities.

In 1913, Hertzog was dropped from the cabinet. In response, he left the SAP altogether and resolved to establish a new party that would advance Afrikaner nationalist principles.

World War II and the Herenigde (Reunited) National Party

An opportunity for reasserting the NP's political dominance appeared to be in the making on September 4, 1939, when Parliament opted by a margin of just thirteen votes to enter World War Two and declared war on Germany two days later.

The apartheid regime

The Herenigde National Party, in coalition with the Afrikaner Party, unexpectedly won a majority of parliamentary seats in the 1948 general election, which enabled it to form a government and begin consolidating its power and implementing apartheid.

Decline and dissolution

The apartheid era National Party relied upon a diverse coalition of Afrikaner supporters whose divergent interests grew increasingly apparent during the 1970s and 1980s.

As early as the mid-1950s, the apartheid coalition began showing signs of strain when Malan's retirement in 1954 gave rise to an unprecedented three-way struggle for the party leadership. It was only after Prime Minister Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd's assassination in 1966 that the NP's internal divisions began to seep into the public electoral realm, though. This began when Albert Hertzog, a Nationalist Member of Parliament and Minister of Health and of Posts and Telegraphs who was disillusioned by the party's approach to implementing apartheid, established a parliamentary study group for his like-minded colleagues to advance a more conservative apartheid vision. Hertzog and his supporters were dropped from the cabinet and, in 1969, the NP experienced its first split when the Hertzog Group broke away to form the Herstigte Nasionale Party (Reconstituted National Party; HNP). Prime Minister Vorster responded by announcing that an early election would be held in April 1970. The HNP garnered just over 3% of the popular vote but failed to pick up a single seat in Parliament, a pattern that was repeated in the 1974 and 1977 elections.

Underlying the HNP breakaway was a growing division between the NP's verligte (enlightened) and verkrampte (conservative) factions.

Reemergence

In August 2008, the National Party announced its reregistration with the Independent Electoral Commission. It plans to list 175 candidates in the 2009 elections, including 50 at the national level.