South African elections in the 1980s

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I wonder if there were also results and turnout figures for the Tricarmel Parliament for Indians and Colored available as well as the electoral boundaries ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I wonder if there were also results and turnout figures for the Tricarmel Parliament for Indians and Colored available as well as the electoral boundaries ?

Yes, I've got results for 1984 and 1989. I haven't shared them up until now out of the logic that they were essentiallya farce with no real legimitacy (and turnouts were consequently, derisory - 30% in 1984 and 18% in 1989 for the coloured election; and around 20% for both Indian ones).

Boundaries would be even more tricky I suspect - all the more as the Coloured constituencies will be overwhelmingly concentrated in the former Cape province and the Indian ones in Natal (iirc, Indians were even banned from living in the Orange Free State).

Give me a couple hours and I'll try to work some logic into them

Thanks would be very interested in looking at them. Generally how much was the malapportionment in favour of the white minority? I know that both Tricarmel parliaments could be outvoted by the white parliament but just how bad was the split ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I know it isn't exactly what this thread is for but I'd be interested to see all the election results in Helen Suzman's seat of Houghton please.  Was she ever in danger of not making it into parliament?

We were discussing her over the weekend here - she was a tremendously interesting personality.

She won it unconstested in 1977, by a ~75-25 margin over the NRP in 1981 and about a 65-35 margin over the NP in 1987. So by that stage - as in the stage it wasn't their only seat - it was pretty safe.

As things go for earlier elections... well we have a familiar problem as far as finding numbers goes. In 1961 she won the seat by a ~500 vote / 5% margin (she got 52.4% of the vote) over the UP (and the PP came within 80 odd votes in the neighbouring constituency of Parktown). In 1966 she improved marginally to 52.9% while the PP did worse overall. After that, the trail dries up, but it seems likely that it would have remained fairly marginal until the UP went into it's death throes in the 1970s.

Out of curiosity how does the area that seat covered vote now ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I know it isn't exactly what this thread is for but I'd be interested to see all the election results in Helen Suzman's seat of Houghton please.  Was she ever in danger of not making it into parliament?

We were discussing her over the weekend here - she was a tremendously interesting personality.

She won it unconstested in 1977, by a ~75-25 margin over the NRP in 1981 and about a 65-35 margin over the NP in 1987. So by that stage - as in the stage it wasn't their only seat - it was pretty safe.

As things go for earlier elections... well we have a familiar problem as far as finding numbers goes. In 1961 she won the seat by a ~500 vote / 5% margin (she got 52.4% of the vote) over the UP (and the PP came within 80 odd votes in the neighbouring constituency of Parktown). In 1966 she improved marginally to 52.9% while the PP did worse overall. After that, the trail dries up, but it seems likely that it would have remained fairly marginal until the UP went into it's death throes in the 1970s.

Out of curiosity how does the area that seat covered vote now ?

The ward covering Houghton went 59% DA, 18% ActionSA, 12% ANC in the municipal elections. Pretty standard for a white, anglophone area and probably the only place in the country that has voted for the same party uninterrupted since the 60s.

By the way of comparison, the nearby former safe PFP/DP safe seat of Yeoville voted 39% ANC, 21% ActionSA, 18% DA, 15% EFF - but has seen huge demographic changes since the beginning of the 90s

Did it in 1994? Who actually voted for DP that year? Because they actually got 90k less votes than in 1989.

Ah, you pendant the IEC have helpfully not got 1994 results in that detail available*, but I assume so on the basis that the NA's huge score relative to the DP in 1994 was largely down to Coloured voters in the Western Cape - who aren't numerous in Gauteng, even less so in an apartheid era white suburb, as well as some segment of the Conservative Party choosing the NP over the new FF+. Again, not many of those people in Houghton.

On that basis, my back of a  cigarette packet calculation was that the DP's 5,3% in Gauteng in '94 - which at the time was slightly over 20% white - probably means 15-20% of the white vote. That being a conservative estimate (I would love to see the results from Lenasia and the Indian townships in Durban in 1994 too, on that note). If the DP getting 19% of the white vote translated into around 70% support in Houghton in 1989, I feel fairly confident they won the place in 1994  - but yes that is speculation, and yes I probably should have included that disclaimer. Still a remarkable consistency relative to anywhere else in the country. Although that said, I imagine there are CP seats from the 80s where the white electorate voted FF+ in 2019/21.

*or, as they say themselves, as they didn't run the 1994 elections, which were run by a temporary electoral commission - no detailed data is available

IS VF+ still a white-supremacist party or have they kinda moderated ? What do they typicaly do in parliament ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

IS VF+ still a white-supremacist party or have they kinda moderated ? What do they typicaly do in parliament ?

I would preface an answer by saying the FF+ could have been a lot worse than they actually are. Viljoen's mere decision to take part in the 1994 election did play a certain role in de-escalating the potential for violence among radical nationalist Afrikaners, especially in the light of the Bophuthatswana crisis (where a big far-right Afrikaner militia had attempted to defend the homeland's leader Lucas Mangope against a coup seeking to install a government that would accept its reincorporation into South Africa). Especially in so far as it led most of the radicals to accept the democratic elections and kneecapped outright nazi movements like the AWB.

Otherwise, yes, the party has moderated since 1994. Back then it was largely pushing for a quasi-independent Afrikaner Volkstaat, a concept which these days has essentially dissapeared from view. Overtime it has turned more into a Afrikaner minority interests party, which in recent times has gone through varying (and varyingly succesful) attempts to branch out into being a party representing the interests of all Afrikaans speakers, ie including coloureds. For example, in 2019 it had Peter Marais* leading it in the Western Cape provincial elections; and it also recently supported coloured prison guards in a Black Economic Empowerment related labour dispute. Which is probably a good indication of what they are up to these days, mostly hotly opposing BBBEE and land redistribution, defending Afrikaans language institutions, and basically setting itself up as a minority rights party.

I wouldn't overestimate their coloured support, or the degree to which it might have moved towards a non-racial, purely linguistic outlook tbh. It's electorate remains overwhelmingly white and Afrikaner speaking, mostly people who have deeply dubious opinions regarding race or what they want South Africa to look like.

*An odd character, leader of the People's Congress Party, which won 2 seats in the 1984 coloureds-only election, and a guy who has gone through multiple political, er, transformations since then

I see so would you say they are a loyal opposition party in terms of accepting a multi-racial state and the current government? What would you say would be the primarly difference or issue between white Afrikaaners/colored Afrikaan speakers who vote DA and vote FF+ ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Fwiw, the Progressives' policy on voting rights at that election:

In 1960 the PP adopted a franchise policy that was on the recommendations of the Molteno commission. In February 1960, Steytler announced the names of the members of the commission, which was to be chaired by D Molteno, a former natives' representative in parliament. Its members included ex-Chief Justice Centlivres, Leslie Blackwell also a former judge and retired MP), Harry Pppenheimer, JG Strauss formerly leader of the UP ), Dr D van der Ross, and Zach de Beer. Two professors of history, LM Thompson and S Marais, were also members of the commission.

In October 1960 its report was published. It proposed granting full voting rights on the ordinary voters' roll to all South Africans who had passed Standard Eight or its equivalent. Alternatively those who had reached Standard Six and had the attainments of a semi-skilled worker or who were literate and had the attainments of at least a skilled worker should be allowed to vote. Those who were literate and owned fixed property or who had been at any time a voter for the House of Assembly should also be enfranchised. There would be a special voters' roll for those who did not qualify to vote on the general voters' roll. The main requirement for admission to the special voters' roll was passing a literacy test. Voters on this roll would elect no more than ten percent of the members of the House of Assembly in specially delimited constituencies and at a separate election.

As in, no votes for the vast majority of blacks. That is what passed for unacceptably left wing in 1960s South Africa. Phwoar.

What was Helen Suzman personal view on all this ?