South African elections in the 1980s

[parochial boy]

It's always been a bit of a curiosity of mine to try and find results from apartheid era whites only elections, because, for all you hear about the leanings of different regions and the Afrikaners and english speakers, it's always seemed near on impossible to actually find anything confirming it.

Anyway, meandering around the internet - I stumbled across a truly ugly excel file, raw numbers only, with those results - spent an hour or so cleaning it up and now I have a file that actually ties through to what the results of the 1981 and 1987 elections were. No idea how I would share it, as at the moment it's just a spreadsheet that would be unreadable if copied in here. And a map is basically a no go because of 1) my (lack) of paint skills 2) good luck finding precise constituency boundaries 3) the issue of what to do with the homelands and townships - which could wind up intensely intricate around smaller towns and in rural areas.

Anyway, to start with - here are results by province at least:

1981
Cape Province
National Party - 43 seats
Progressive Federal Party - 11 seats (predominantly the Southern and Atlantic Coast suburbs of Cape Town ie Anglos and Jews)
National Republican Party - 1 seat (King Williams Town - old anglo heartland in today's Eastern Cape)

Natal
NP - 7 seats (disproportionately inland and more Afrikaans speaking)
NRP - 7 seats (disproportionately on the coast)
PFP - 6 seats (both Pietermaritzburgs - the university? - as well as one random rural one in the Midlands - which is an Anglo dominated farming area, notable for anyone who has ever read the 'Spud' books)

Orange Free State
NP - 14 seats

Transvaal
NP - 67 seats
PFP - 9 seats (Anglos around the North and East of Jo'burg)


1987
Cape Province
National Party - 47 seats
Progressive Federal Party - 8 seat
Independent - 1 seat

Natal
NP - 15 seats
PFP - 5 seats (no more Pietermaritzburg, but the random rural one remains)
NRP -  1 seat (also in the Midlands)

Orange Free State
NP - 14 seats (genuinely shocked the Conservatives didn't win one)

Transvaal
NP - 48 seats
Conservative Party - 21 seats (seem to be especially strong in mining areas, as well was what are now the provinces of Mpumalanga and Limpopo, the latter of which actually voted no in the 92 referendum)
PFP - 6 seats (notably losing the - now notorious - central district of Hillbrow to and NP candidate running on a "gay rights and kick out the blacks" campaign)

Anyway, if there is interest, maybe I'll think of a better way to present the results. Or break them down by modern day provinces, more useful in the cases of the Transvaal and Cape, or even by cities.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Ek is geïnteresseerd.

[xelas81]

Interesting.
Did NRP and PFP ran candidates at every seat or was there any attempt to tactical alliance between two parties?

[parochial boy]

Interesting.
Did NRP and PFP ran candidates at every seat or was there any attempt to tactical alliance between two parties?

One thing that actually surprised me was quite how many seats the minor parties didn't actually stand in. For instance, in 1981 there were a dozen or so seats that the NP won uncontested (mostly Afrikaner areas in the Western Cape), and in 1987 at least, the PFP only even stood in 3 of the 14 Orange Free State constituencies.

As for the NRP and PFP, basically no. Relations between the two parties were intensely bad, as far as the PFP were concerned, the NRP were as good as supporters of apartheid and were more inclined to support the NP over the PFP. By the 1980s, the NRP had basically also been confined to Natal - where outside of the more, Afrikaans speaking areas they were often battling the PFP for the seat (with the NP a close third).

[Libertas Vel Mors]

It's always been a bit of a curiosity of mine to try and find results from apartheid era whites only elections, because, for all you hear about the leanings of different regions and the Afrikaners and english speakers, it's always seemed near on impossible to actually find anything confirming it.

Anyway, meandering around the internet - I stumbled across a truly ugly excel file, raw numbers only, with those results - spent an hour or so cleaning it up and now I have a file that actually ties through to what the results of the 1981 and 1987 elections were. No idea how I would share it, as at the moment it's just a spreadsheet that would be unreadable if copied in here. And a map is basically a no go because of 1) my (lack) of paint skills 2) good luck finding precise constituency boundaries 3) the issue of what to do with the homelands and townships - which could wind up intensely intricate around smaller towns and in rural areas.

Anyway, to start with - here are results by province at least:

1981
Cape Province
National Party - 43 seats
Progressive Federal Party - 11 seats (predominantly the Southern and Atlantic Coast suburbs of Cape Town ie Anglos and Jews)
National Republican Party - 1 seat (King Williams Town - old anglo heartland in today's Eastern Cape)

Natal
NP - 7 seats (disproportionately inland and more Afrikaans speaking)
NRP - 7 seats (disproportionately on the coast)
PFP - 6 seats (both Pietermaritzburgs - the university? - as well as one random rural one in the Midlands - which is an Anglo dominated farming area, notable for anyone who has ever read the 'Spud' books)

Orange Free State
NP - 14 seats

Transvaal
NP - 67 seats
PFP - 9 seats (Anglos around the North and East of Jo'burg)


1987
Cape Province
National Party - 47 seats
Progressive Federal Party - 8 seat
Independent - 1 seat

Natal
NP - 15 seats
PFP - 5 seats (no more Pietermaritzburg, but the random rural one remains)
NRP -  1 seat (also in the Midlands)

Orange Free State
NP - 14 seats (genuinely shocked the Conservatives didn't win one)

Transvaal
NP - 48 seats
Conservative Party - 21 seats (seem to be especially strong in mining areas, as well was what are now the provinces of Mpumalanga and Limpopo, the latter of which actually voted no in the 92 referendum)
PFP - 6 seats (notably losing the - now notorious - central district of Hillbrow to and NP candidate running on a "gay rights and kick out the blacks" campaign)

Anyway, if there is interest, maybe I'll think of a better way to present the results. Or break them down by modern day provinces, more useful in the cases of the Transvaal and Cape, or even by cities.

Would you mind sharing the Excel sheet?

[parochial boy]

Would you mind sharing the Excel sheet?

Happy to. I'm just not sure of a way to. I thought about loading it in a google docs or something, but I'm not sure I'm so comfortable about making my account details public like that. Is there anywhere you know of where I can just load the file as an FTP or something?

In the meantime, courtesy of the data analytical genius or Mr Sumifs, Mr Pivot and Mrs Vlookup, here are a load of numbers, but that show results for the new provinces and the big three cities.

Things might not be perfect - post '94 name changes meant it was pretty hard to locate places. I'm pretty familiar with KZN* and the Cape was easy enough - but random river valleys in the Transvaal? eh, maybe...

New Provinces '81
Eastern Cape   
National Party   56.39% (10 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   21.98% (2 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   11.31%
New Republic Party   10.32% (1 seat)
Free State   
National Party   72.96%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   25.23%
New Republic Party   1.81%
Gauteng   
National Party   56.62% (45 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   24.04% (9 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   12.10%
New Republic Party   4.874
National Conservative Party   2.49%
KwaZulu-Natal   
National Party   37.44%
New Republic Party   31.97%
Progressive Federal Party   25.73%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   4.57%
National Conservative Party   0.29%
Limpopo   
National Party   60.82% (4 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   28.16%
Independent   9.16%
New Republic Party   1.86%
Mpumalanga   
National Party   59.46% (10 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   32.78%
Progressive Federal Party   4.58%
National Conservative Party   2.31%
New Republic Party   0.87%
North West   
National Party   64.93% (9 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   31.05%
National Conservative Party   4.03%
Northern Cape   
National Party   75.43% (7 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   17.51%
Progressive Federal Party   3.62%
National Conservative Party   3.44%
Western Cape   
National Party   55.52% (25 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   32.90% (11 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   5.98%
New Republic Party   5.34%
Independent   0.26%


new provinces - '87   
Eastern Cape   
National Party   59.28% (12 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   18.19% (1 seat)
Conservative Party   13.80%
New Republic Party   5.07%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   2.56%
Independent   1.10%
Free State   
National Party   55.82%
Conservative Party   36.35%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   6.27%
Progressive Federal Party   1.56%
Gauteng   
National Party   49.77% (41 seats)
Conservative Party   30.10% (8 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   15.76% (6 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   2.27%
Independent   1.46%
New Republic Party   0.64%
KwaZulu-Natal   
National Party   50.22%
Progressive Federal Party   28.16%
New Republic Party   9.82%
Conservative Party   8.87%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   1.87%
Independent   1.07%
Limpopo   
Conservative Party   51.50% (4 seats)
National Party   43.00%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   5.50%
Mpumalanga   
National Party   46.63% (3 seats)
Conservative Party   46.49% (7 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   5.50%
Progressive Federal Party   1.37%
Namibia   
National Party   73.51% (1 seat)
Conservative Party   26.49%
North West   
Conservative Party   47.97% (3 seats)
National Party   46.95% (6 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   4.65%
Progressive Federal Party   0.44%
Northern Cape   
National Party   59.11% (7 seats)
Conservative Party   34.07%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   3.67%
Progressive Federal Party   3.15%
Western Cape   
National Party   61.87% (26 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   19.26% (7 seats)
Conservative Party   11.56%
Independent   3.44% (1 seat)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   2.33%
New Republic Party   1.54%


cities - '81   
Cape Town   
Progressive Federal Party   46.50% (9 seats)
National Party   42.96% (8 seats)
New Republic Party   8.67%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   1.44%
Independent   0.43%
Durban   
New Republic Party   42.47% (5 seats)
National Party   28.50% (3 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   28.27% (3 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   0.77%
Jozi   
Progressive Federal Party   45.13% (8 seats)
National Party   43.14% (11 seats)
New Republic Party   8.91%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   2.19%
National Conservative Party   0.61%

cities - '87   
Cape Town   
National Party   57.88% (10 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   34.91% (7 seats)
Conservative Party   5.56%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   1.26%
New Republic Party   0.40%
Durban   
National Party   50.74% (7 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   35.21% (4 seats)
New Republic Party   9.94%
Conservative Party   3.43%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   0.68%
Jozi   
National Party   47.76% (11 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   29.79% (6 seats)
Conservative Party   15.41% (2 seats)
Independent   4.74%
New Republic Party   1.20%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   1.09%


*even then, some funny ones eg the seat of Umlazi - Umlazi is in Durban, easy... except Umlazi is a township, so why does it have a seat? is it the same place? or white areas nearby? hmm...

[DC Al Fine]

Couple questions:

1) How free and fair were these elections (for the white electorate)?

2) NP and KP electorates seem fairly obvious. Any major differences between NRP and PFP supporters?

[Estrella]

PFP - 6 seats (notably losing the - now notorious - central district of Hillbrow to and NP candidate running on a "gay rights and kick out the blacks" campaign)

At first I wasn't sure if this wasn't a typo, so I went looking for more info and, um, what

Everyone’s chasing the Hillbrow gay vote

Nobody knows how many gay voters there are in Hillbrow. No survey has been done, and few people are willing to hazard a guess, but the NP and DP are certainly taking the gay vote seriously, both parties having placed ads in the gay publication, Exit. Candidates and campaign workers say that many voters who are registered in Hillbrow are no longer resident there, and at least half are as yet untraced, increasing the importance of the Hillbrow gay community’s vote.

It is the general opinion among gay voters that it was their vote that put Leon de Beer (NP) in parliament in 1987. He was the first parliamentary candidate to advertise in Exit. One of the DP’s adverts says that the party plans to take the issue of the criminalisation of gay activities to parliament, and will support all plans to open a full-time Gay Crisis Centre in Johannesburg. The DP’s standpoint is that gay rights fall under the broader human rights for which the party is campaigning. ”We are against discrimination of any kind,” says Lester Fuchs, DP candidate in Hillbrow.

Fuchs has also promised to pay attention to the lowering of the age of consent for gay sex. ”Don’t use gays in elections!” shouts the full-page advert placed in Exit by Tony Wasserman (NP), somewhat cryptically. In clarification, Wasserman told the Weekly Mail that he was paying no special attention to gay voters or specifically addressing himself to any gay issues. It was part of an all-over election strategy to reach as many voters as possible, he said. ”They are playing a game,” was the comment of TJ Ferreira, CP candidate for Hillbrow. In his view, the DP is being ”dishonest”, as they will not be able to address these issues in parliament. ”We know that the DP would also like to take the MDM issue to parliament,” he said.

Commenting on the anti-gay sentiments expressed by CP members such as Fred Rundle in the past, Ferreira said that ”each person has the right to his own thinking”. Ferreira said that if he felt it would benefit his business, he himself would advertise in Exit. Exit (itself under threat of banning, because of action instigated by Rundle) has paid significant attention to the upcoming election, with the headline ”Vote for gay survival” on an editorial in its latest edition.

The response of gay voters to the election farrago is not, however, very enthusiastic. One gay man of 42 who has lived in Hillbrow for 14 years said: ”Maybe the DP can come up with something, but in any case maybe a lot of gays in Hill brow will even vote CP, because they don’t want the area to go black.” ”A lot of gays are very conservative and they vote Nat without thinking,” he added.

So that was Hillbrow. Meanwhile, about 50 kilometres away in Voortrekkerhoogte... I put what happened there in a spoiler tag because it really isn't light reading.

Spoiler alert! Click Show to show the content.

Show

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aversion_Project

Between 1971 and 1989, victims were submitted to chemical castration and electric shock treatment meant to cure them of their homosexuality. During the course of the shock therapy, treatment electrodes were strapped to the upper arm with wires, then run through a dial calibrated from 1 to 10, varying the current. Homosexual soldiers were shown black and white pictures of a naked man and were encouraged to fantasize, at which point the person-in-charge would administer a shock if the soldiers showed any form of sexual response and voltage was increased throughout the treatment if the soldiers continued to exhibit sexual responses.

After the conversion therapy was noticeably failing, staff came up with an alternative. As a result, whenever treatments would not work, they put patients through a sex change operation. This included being put through surgery and being given a new identity. Patients would then be discharged from the military, and advised to cut themselves off from family and friends. As many as 900 homosexuals, mostly 16–24 year-olds who had been drafted, had surgical procedures to alter their genitals and given birth certificates to fit their modified anatomy. This surgery was done in military hospitals and a high rate of patients died during surgery. Additionally, the reassignments were often incomplete, leaving patients with a halfway finished procedures.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Would you mind sharing the Excel sheet?

Happy to. I'm just not sure of a way to. I thought about loading it in a google docs or something, but I'm not sure I'm so comfortable about making my account details public like that. Is there anywhere you know of where I can just load the file as an FTP or something?

In the meantime, courtesy of the data analytical genius or Mr Sumifs, Mr Pivot and Mrs Vlookup, here are a load of numbers, but that show results for the new provinces and the big three cities.

Things might not be perfect - post '94 name changes meant it was pretty hard to locate places. I'm pretty familiar with KZN* and the Cape was easy enough - but random river valleys in the Transvaal? eh, maybe...

New Provinces '81
Eastern Cape   
National Party   56.39% (10 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   21.98% (2 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   11.31%
New Republic Party   10.32% (1 seat)
Free State   
National Party   72.96%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   25.23%
New Republic Party   1.81%
Gauteng   
National Party   56.41% (44 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   24.48% (9 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   11.74%
New Republic Party   4.83%
National Conservative Party   2.54%
KwaZulu-Natal   
National Party   37.44%
New Republic Party   31.97%
Progressive Federal Party   25.73%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   4.57%
National Conservative Party   0.29%
Limpopo   
National Party   60.82% (4 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   28.16%
Independent   9.16%
New Republic Party   1.86%
Mpumalanga   
National Party   60.21% (11 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   32.69%
Progressive Federal Party   4.19%
National Conservative Party   2.11%
New Republic Party   0.80%
North West   
National Party   64.93% (9 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   31.05%
National Conservative Party   4.03%
Northern Cape   
National Party   75.43% (7 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   17.51%
Progressive Federal Party   3.62%
National Conservative Party   3.44%
Western Cape   
National Party   55.52% (25 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   32.90% (11 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   5.98%
New Republic Party   5.34%
Independent   0.26%


new provinces - '87   
Eastern Cape   
National Party   59.28% (12 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   18.19% (1 seat)
Conservative Party   13.80%
New Republic Party   5.07%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   2.56%
Independent   1.10%
Free State   
National Party   55.82%
Conservative Party   36.35%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   6.27%
Progressive Federal Party   1.56%
Gauteng   
National Party   49.84% (40 seats)
Conservative Party   29.63% (7 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   16.08% (6 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   2.31%
Independent   1.49%
New Republic Party   0.65%
KwaZulu-Natal   
National Party   50.22%
Progressive Federal Party   28.16%
New Republic Party   9.82%
Conservative Party   8.87%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   1.87%
Independent   1.07%
Limpopo   
Conservative Party   51.50% (4 seats)
National Party   43.00%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   5.50%
Mpumalanga   
Conservative Party   47.14% (8 seats)
National Party   46.62% (3 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   4.99%
Progressive Federal Party   1.25%
Namibia   
National Party   73.51% (1 seat)
Conservative Party   26.49%
North West   
Conservative Party   47.97% (3 seats)
National Party   46.95% (6 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   4.65%
Progressive Federal Party   0.44%
Northern Cape   
National Party   59.11% (7 seats)
Conservative Party   34.07%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   3.67%
Progressive Federal Party   3.15%
Western Cape   
National Party   61.87% (26 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   19.26% (7 seats)
Conservative Party   11.56%
Independent   3.44% (1 seat)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   2.33%
New Republic Party   1.54%


cities - '81   
Cape Town   
Progressive Federal Party   47.70% (7 seats)
National Party   43.58% (6 seats)
New Republic Party   7.05%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   1.07%
Independent   0.61%
Durban   
New Republic Party   42.09% (5 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   31.06% (3 seats)
National Party   26.00% (2 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   0.85%
Jozi   
National Party   45.56% (13 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   39.92% (8 seats)
New Republic Party   8.82%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   5.14%
National Conservative Party   0.55%

cities - '87   
Cape Town   
National Party   60.23% (8 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   32.71% (5 seats)
Conservative Party   5.16%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   1.33%
New Republic Party   0.57%
Durban   
National Party   50.03% (6 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   36.03% (4 seats)
New Republic Party   10.99%
Conservative Party   2.19%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   0.76%
Jozi   
National Party   47.81% (13 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   25.96% (6 seats)
Conservative Party   18.90% (2 seats)
Independent   4.13%
New Republic Party   1.80%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   1.39%

*even then, some funny ones eg the seat of Umlazi - Umlazi is in Durban, easy... except Umlazi is a township, so why does it have a seat? is it the same place? or white areas nearby? hmm...

Hmm. You could try using an alternate email? Or, alternatively (if there is one) a link to the sheet's source could also work. No worries if not though.

[H. Ross Peron]

Did the PFP have stronger support among Afrikaners than the NRP?

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Would you mind sharing the Excel sheet?

Happy to. I'm just not sure of a way to. I thought about loading it in a google docs or something, but I'm not sure I'm so comfortable about making my account details public like that. Is there anywhere you know of where I can just load the file as an FTP or something?

In the meantime, courtesy of the data analytical genius or Mr Sumifs, Mr Pivot and Mrs Vlookup, here are a load of numbers, but that show results for the new provinces and the big three cities.

Things might not be perfect - post '94 name changes meant it was pretty hard to locate places. I'm pretty familiar with KZN* and the Cape was easy enough - but random river valleys in the Transvaal? eh, maybe...

New Provinces '81
Eastern Cape   
National Party   56.39% (10 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   21.98% (2 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   11.31%
New Republic Party   10.32% (1 seat)
Free State   
National Party   72.96%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   25.23%
New Republic Party   1.81%
Gauteng   
National Party   56.41% (44 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   24.48% (9 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   11.74%
New Republic Party   4.83%
National Conservative Party   2.54%
KwaZulu-Natal   
National Party   37.44%
New Republic Party   31.97%
Progressive Federal Party   25.73%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   4.57%
National Conservative Party   0.29%
Limpopo   
National Party   60.82% (4 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   28.16%
Independent   9.16%
New Republic Party   1.86%
Mpumalanga   
National Party   60.21% (11 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   32.69%
Progressive Federal Party   4.19%
National Conservative Party   2.11%
New Republic Party   0.80%
North West   
National Party   64.93% (9 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   31.05%
National Conservative Party   4.03%
Northern Cape   
National Party   75.43% (7 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   17.51%
Progressive Federal Party   3.62%
National Conservative Party   3.44%
Western Cape   
National Party   55.52% (25 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   32.90% (11 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   5.98%
New Republic Party   5.34%
Independent   0.26%


new provinces - '87   
Eastern Cape   
National Party   59.28% (12 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   18.19% (1 seat)
Conservative Party   13.80%
New Republic Party   5.07%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   2.56%
Independent   1.10%
Free State   
National Party   55.82%
Conservative Party   36.35%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   6.27%
Progressive Federal Party   1.56%
Gauteng   
National Party   49.84% (40 seats)
Conservative Party   29.63% (7 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   16.08% (6 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   2.31%
Independent   1.49%
New Republic Party   0.65%
KwaZulu-Natal   
National Party   50.22%
Progressive Federal Party   28.16%
New Republic Party   9.82%
Conservative Party   8.87%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   1.87%
Independent   1.07%
Limpopo   
Conservative Party   51.50% (4 seats)
National Party   43.00%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   5.50%
Mpumalanga   
Conservative Party   47.14% (8 seats)
National Party   46.62% (3 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   4.99%
Progressive Federal Party   1.25%
Namibia   
National Party   73.51% (1 seat)
Conservative Party   26.49%
North West   
Conservative Party   47.97% (3 seats)
National Party   46.95% (6 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   4.65%
Progressive Federal Party   0.44%
Northern Cape   
National Party   59.11% (7 seats)
Conservative Party   34.07%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   3.67%
Progressive Federal Party   3.15%
Western Cape   
National Party   61.87% (26 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   19.26% (7 seats)
Conservative Party   11.56%
Independent   3.44% (1 seat)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   2.33%
New Republic Party   1.54%


cities - '81   
Cape Town   
Progressive Federal Party   47.70% (7 seats)
National Party   43.58% (6 seats)
New Republic Party   7.05%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   1.07%
Independent   0.61%
Durban   
New Republic Party   42.09% (5 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   31.06% (3 seats)
National Party   26.00% (2 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   0.85%
Jozi   
National Party   45.56% (13 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   39.92% (8 seats)
New Republic Party   8.82%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   5.14%
National Conservative Party   0.55%

cities - '87   
Cape Town   
National Party   60.23% (8 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   32.71% (5 seats)
Conservative Party   5.16%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   1.33%
New Republic Party   0.57%
Durban   
National Party   50.03% (6 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   36.03% (4 seats)
New Republic Party   10.99%
Conservative Party   2.19%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   0.76%
Jozi   
National Party   47.81% (13 seats)
Progressive Federal Party   25.96% (6 seats)
Conservative Party   18.90% (2 seats)
Independent   4.13%
New Republic Party   1.80%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   1.39%

*even then, some funny ones eg the seat of Umlazi - Umlazi is in Durban, easy... except Umlazi is a township, so why does it have a seat? is it the same place? or white areas nearby? hmm...

Alternatively, would you happen to have the popular vote divisions for the old provinces as well?

[parochial boy]

At first I wasn't sure if this wasn't a typo, so I went looking for more info and, um, what

The fact that Hillbrow did actually very quickly "go black" after that article feels almost like poetic justice in that respect. Although that would be downplaying quite how the place fell apart in the 90s.

The PFP candidate did actually win the seat back in 1989 though. And Leon De Beer had a fairly hillarious subsequent journey of going to prison for electoral fraud and eventually trying to get himself elected in both the DA and the ANC. A man of sincere convictions, in sum.

In contrast to that though, Sea Point, which would sort of function as the Cape Town equivalent gay quarter (plus big jewish community), was over 70% PFP in the 1987 election. But Cape Town was a rather more liberal town, as the number would suggest

Couple questions:

1) How free and fair were these elections (for the white electorate)?

2) NP and KP electorates seem fairly obvious. Any major differences between NRP and PFP supporters?

1. AFAIK the elections themselves were at least conducted with a semblance of fairness - see the above case of an NP politician even being convicted of fraud while the NP was in power. I have seen various accusations of the NP committing fraud in its favour, but none seem to have been definitevely confirmed. More to the point is that constituency sizes were - well - not based on any real attempt to divide the population into equal sizes. Legally they could be 15% larger or smaller than the standard size, but in practice you literally have a range from 25'000 votes being cast in urban constituencies in Gauteng, to fewer than 5'000 in rural areas in the Northern Cape.

That said, the elections clearly weren't democratic exercises (2 million votes cast in a country of 30 million people at the time, says enough really) and that goes for whites as well. For instance, even if the PFP was just about tolerated, pretty much everything further left was banned - including for white. And political opponents, including white ones, were still subject to harrassment and arrest.

Likewise the media - even for whites - was not even close to being free. By the 1980s the SABC had effectively turned into a propaganda outfit for the NP; and opposition media (including the Mail & Guardian cited by Estrella) was being banned. Likewise, there was no genuine judicial independence, so the NP could usually find a way to get it's desires implemented by the courts.

Which of course, doesn't change the fact that the regime was popular and had a support of the majority of whites throughout the whole period

2. (and trying to answer Mung Beans' question too). By 1981, the NRP appears to have been an exclusively english speaking party. The constituencies it won were all very english speaking ones in Natal or the historical anglo heartland of Albany in the Eastern Cape. But more to the point, even outside of those areas, it essentially only even stood in predominantly anglophone constituncies. That is, a handful in Cape Town's Southern Suburbs, East London, Albany as well as in the more anglophone constituencies in Johannesburg and the East Rand (typically more English speaking than the western side of modern day Gauteng).

As for who voted for one over the other. Well, the trite answer would be "liberals" and "conservatives". Or to the point, zoning in specifically on KwaZulu-Natal, apart from the Pietermaritzburgs - the PFP won Durban Central (containing notably the technical university and a chunk of the beach front) and Berea (which is a pretty central neighbourhood on a hill just north of the city centre running up to the Umgeni river and is to this day a fairly "cool" area), as well as Pinetown (suburban area in the hills, but no NRP candidate). The PFP's win in Greytown (the rural seat) appears to have come of an almost equal split between all three parties

In contrast the NRP won Umhlanga and Durban North which are swanky beach side suburbs. Umhlanga today is a bit like Sandton in Jo'burg, as in it is reputedly the best suburb and is home to a number of offices and businesses that have deserted the - somewhat - degraded city centre. They also won some suburban areas like Umbilo, but also Durban Point (on the harbour). Today it is a notable hang out sport for cheap hostels, prostitutes and drug dealers; I was told repeatedly to avoid it at night, but durng the day the baechfront is still pretty relaxed).

So based on that, it does seem to be the PFP vote in Durban was a bit more urban, younger, etc... and the NRP more "establisment" (seemingly with a more working class NP vote, even in Durban). predictable stuff. In the other two cities, the patterns are kind of obscured by the linguistic divide. There doesn't seem to be any special difference between the Cape Town southern suburbs (ie on the eastern side Table Mountain) and it's Atlantic coast ones - all english speaking - the NRP only stood in two seats, both in the Southern Suburbs, and lost heavily to the PFP in both.

Same picture in Johannesburg, the NRP don't stand everywhere, get beaten badly where they do, and the only correlation is the number of english speakers. With that in mind though, one of the best indicators of the PFP doing well in both Cape Town and Joburg is a large jewish community, as they were always the white group most opposed to the apartheid regime.

In that respect, the PFP did do better among Afrikaners than the NRP did - at least by the 80s - in part because the NRP basically didn't have any Afrikaner voters at all. There are a handful of urban predominantly Afrikaner seats like Durbanville in the north of Cape Town, and one of the Pretoria seats where - even if they didn't win - the PFP still did get respectable scores.

[parochial boy]

Hmm. You could try using an alternate email? Or, alternatively (if there is one) a link to the sheet's source could also work. No worries if not though.

It was actually a text file that I had to download in csv format then figure out how to delimit to make any sense of. So in that respect, it's probably a bit silly to just duplicate the effort when it's already done. Maybe PM me your email address and I can send it over to you?

There might be a couple of errors in there - I fixed a couple today - but the results tie through to the official ones, so I'm pretty confident it is substantially correct.

Results for the old provinces are easy enough

1981
Cape Province   
National Party   58.39%
Progressive Federal Party   25.65%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   9.35%
New Republic Party   6.05%
National Conservative Party   0.42%
Independent   0.15%
Natal   
National Party   37.44%
New Republic Party   31.97%
Progressive Federal Party   25.73%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   4.57%
National Conservative Party   0.29%
Orange Free State   
National Party   72.96%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   25.23%
New Republic Party   1.81%
Transvaal   
National Party   58.01%
Progressive Federal Party   17.73%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   17.65%
New Republic Party   3.59%
National Conservative Party   2.52%
Independent   0.49%


and 1987
Cape Province   
National Party   60.92%
Progressive Federal Party   16.95%
Conservative Party   14.94%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   2.54%
Independent   2.43%
New Republic Party   2.23%
Natal   
National Party   50.22%
Progressive Federal Party   28.16%
New Republic Party   9.82%
Conservative Party   8.87%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   1.87%
Independent   1.07%
Orange Free State   
National Party   55.82%
Conservative Party   36.35%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   6.27%
Progressive Federal Party   1.56%
Transvaal   
National Party   48.62%
Conservative Party   35.36%
Progressive Federal Party   11.41%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   3.13%

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Hmm. You could try using an alternate email? Or, alternatively (if there is one) a link to the sheet's source could also work. No worries if not though.

It was actually a text file that I had to download in csv format then figure out how to delimit to make any sense of. So in that respect, it's probably a bit silly to just duplicate the effort when it's already done. Maybe PM me your email address and I can send it over to you?

There might be a couple of errors in there - I fixed a couple today - but the results tie through to the official ones, so I'm pretty confident it is substantially correct.

Results for the old provinces are easy enough

1981
Cape Province   
National Party   58.39%
Progressive Federal Party   25.65%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   9.35%
New Republic Party   6.05%
National Conservative Party   0.42%
Independent   0.15%
Natal   
National Party   37.44%
New Republic Party   31.97%
Progressive Federal Party   25.73%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   4.57%
National Conservative Party   0.29%
Orange Free State   
National Party   72.96%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   25.23%
New Republic Party   1.81%
Transvaal   
National Party   58.01%
Progressive Federal Party   17.73%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   17.65%
New Republic Party   3.59%
National Conservative Party   2.52%
Independent   0.49%


and 1987
Cape Province   
National Party   60.92%
Progressive Federal Party   16.95%
Conservative Party   14.94%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   2.54%
Independent   2.43%
New Republic Party   2.23%
Natal   
National Party   50.22%
Progressive Federal Party   28.16%
New Republic Party   9.82%
Conservative Party   8.87%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   1.87%
Independent   1.07%
Orange Free State   
National Party   55.82%
Conservative Party   36.35%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   6.27%
Progressive Federal Party   1.56%
Transvaal   
National Party   48.62%
Conservative Party   35.36%
Progressive Federal Party   11.41%
Herstigte Nasionale Party   3.13%

Will do. Thank you!

[Estrella]

Some time ago when I got interested in SA politics, I browsed old threads on here and found some very interesting stuff, including an improvised map of the 1981 election. I suddenly remembered it and I knew it's here somewhere, but I couldn't for the life of me remember who made it or where it was, so I thought it's been lost to time.

Anyway, half an hour of frustration later...

In the meantime, here's something on which I've always sought out more information: apartheid-era white-only elections. I got my hand on 1987 results, here they are in Google Maps:

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=204535606153981578947.0004cb583e8faf4020459&msa=0&ll=-26.833875,31.333008&spn=6.712698,11.634521

[parochial boy]

Some time ago when I got interested in SA politics, I browsed old threads on here and found some very interesting stuff, including an improvised map of the 1981 election. I suddenly remembered it and I knew it's here somewhere, but I couldn't for the life of me remember who made it or where it was, so I thought it's been lost to time.

Anyway, half an hour of frustration later...

In the meantime, here's something on which I've always sought out more information: apartheid-era white-only elections. I got my hand on 1987 results, here they are in Google Maps:

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=204535606153981578947.0004cb583e8faf4020459&msa=0&ll=-26.833875,31.333008&spn=6.712698,11.634521

Haha, nice to see that he ran into exactly the same issues with locating places as I did - guessing the locations of places based on river valleys or game reserves. That probably is about as good as you could make a map, given the circumstances - I can only see two difference with my numbers at the moment:

1. is that Hash has Innesdal in Pretoria voting NRP, whereas I have got the National Party winning and the NRP not even standing. Considering it's Pretoria, I feel a bit more confident in my numbers there

2. Is Klip River, which Hash's map doesn't have (nope it is there, I'm just blind, but keeping the anecdote because it illustrates the wider point about how hard it is to locate these places), and which my searches seemed to suggest was in Gauteng. Except the file insists it is in Natal, and eventually I managed to trace down a Zulu language wikipedia article suggesting it is near the town of Ladysmith

More to the point though, it's kind of amazing just how difficult it is to actually find this kind of stuff. Like, if you want an electoral map from 1970s New Zealand or Chile - absolutely no problem. But South Africa? Impossible. Which is almost a bit surprising as you'd think there would be a bit more academic interest considering the rather, er, uniqueness of these particular elections. Failing downloading huge datasets from university collections, is Atlas one of the only places on the internet where you can even start to find out this sort of stuff?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's peculiar because this information must surely exist? Laws must surely have been passed that deliminated boundaries, and yet...

[Estrella]

It's peculiar because this information must surely exist? Laws must surely have been passed that deliminated boundaries, and yet...

In the RSA Constitution Act 1983, there's an overlong and overcomplicated section specifically dealing with "delimination of electoral divisions". The relevant parts are:

(1) At intervals of not less than five years and not more than 10 years, commencing, in the case of the House of Assembly, from the last delimitation of its electoral divisions in terms of the previous Constitution, and, in the case of the House of Representatives or the House of Delegates, from the first delimitation of electoral divisions of the House in question in terms of this Act, the State President shall appoint a delimitation commission consisting of three judges of the Supreme Court of South Africa, which shall, subject to the provisions of section 41 (2), 42 (2) or 43 (2), as the case may be, divide the Republic, for the purpose of the election of directly elected members of the House in question, into the same number of electoral divisions as the number of such members of that House, in such a manner that no electoral division is situated partly in one province and partly in another province.

(1) A delimitation commission, having delimited the electoral divisions of a House, shall submit to the State President-

(a) a list of the electoral divisions, with the names given to them by the commission and a description of the boundaries of each division;

(b) a map or maps showing the electoral divisions into which the provinces have been divided;

(c) such further particulars as it considers necessary.

(2) The State President may refer to the commission for its consideration all matters relating to such list or arising out of the powers or duties of the commission.

(3) The State President shall by proclamation in the Gazette make known the names and boundaries of the electoral divisions as finally settled and certified by the commission, or a majority thereof, and thereafter, until there shall be a redivision, the electoral divisions so named and defined shall be the electoral divisions of the House in question in the Republic and the provinces.

So it should be somewhere in the Gazette, right? If there isn't a delimination done according to this law (did that comission even come up with anything anyway? Not if it was like other Botha "reforms"), then perhaps there could be some from before the new constitution was put in place.

According to neverending lists of Acts of the Parliament of South Africa on Wikipedia, there were various Electoral Amendment Acts and Electoral Law Amendments passed every couple of years up until 1983, though quite a lot of them dealt specifically with Indians. The Government Gazette archive doesn't have anything older than 2006. There are some older editions of the Gazette on other websites, but anything from before 1994 is very hard to find and none contain what I'm looking for. The LegalB database of primary legislation has an even more exhaustive list by year, with a nice little button labelled "LINK" next to every Act... except 99% of those don't link to anything. There's even a nice little list of every election-related or constitution-related Act, and it's not there either. Plus, even the links that do work mostly consist of lists of sections followed by "repealed by Act blabla etc".

But I did find what I thought to be the text of one of those Acts elsewhere, something called "1983 No 104 Electoral Amendment":

BE IT ENACTED by the General Assembly of New Zealand in Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

Ah fxck.

After that, I went looking some more and found the only actually South African Electoral Whatever Act, that of 1984. Yay! Except...

1. it wasn't listed anywhere (okay, that might not be such a big problem)
2. it's scanned but didn't go through OCR, so you can't search for a term and you need to read the whole thing
3. it's an amendment, so it's mostly a long string of incomprehensible "the substitution in subsection (1) thereof for the words preceding paragraph (a) of the following words" and such
4. it mostly deals with a whole bunch of technicalities wrt registration of Coloured and Indian voters in preparation for the Tricameral Parliament, but there's nothing concrete about electoral districts there, except references to the aforementioned sections of the 1983 constitution.

And that's it. There's nothing else out there, on the internet at least. And I found that one Act on the website of the Library of US Congress!

tl;dr no

[parochial boy]

There is probably some minor official government in Pretoria with access to those gazettes and that is it. I imagine an email along the lines of "hello, I come from an obscure internet forum and would be interested in getting hold of constituency boundaries from some election back in the 80's  - you know, the ones you couldn't vote in because you were legally a second class citizen at the time" would go a long way... er...

In any case. Here is 1989 by new province and city. New provinces because they reveal quite a bit more than the old ones do. But otherwise, I have only found data going back to 1977, which themselves aren't especially interesting because it's the stage where the National party are winning 90% of the seats. 1948 would be fascinating, but that's another thing lost to the annals of time I fear.

New Provinces      
   
Eastern Cape      
National Party   51.79%   (10 seats)
Democratic Party   28.17%   (2 seats)
Conservative Party   19.95%   (1 seat)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   0.09%   
Free State      
National Party   50.91%   (8 seats)
Conservative Party   46.30%   (6 seats)
Democratic Party   2.40%   
Herstigte Nasionale Party   0.39%   
Gauteng      
National Party   46.14%   (29 seats)
Conservative Party   34.58%   (15 seats)
Democratic Party   19.04%   (11 seats)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   0.17%   
Independent   0.08%   
KwaZulu-Natal      
National Party   45.68%   (11 seats)
Democratic Party   41.06%   (9 seats)
Conservative Party   13.07%   
Herstigte Nasionale Party   0.10%   
Independent   0.10%   
Limpopo      
Conservative Party   56.42%   (4 seats)
National Party   41.95%   
Herstigte Nasionale Party   1.63%   
Mpumalanga      
Conservative Party   52.76%   (7 seats)
National Party   44.10%   (3 seats)
Democratic Party   2.77%   
Herstigte Nasionale Party   0.37%   
Namibia      
National Party   66.15%   (1 seat)
Conservative Party   33.85%   
North West      
Conservative Party   53.86%   (7 seats)
National Party   45.06%   (2 seats)
Democratic Party   0.81%   (4,7% in Klerksdorp - gold mines & birthplace of Desmond Tutu)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   0.27%   
Northern Cape      
National Party   56.35%   (6 seats)
Conservative Party   43.44%   (1 seat)
Herstigte Nasionale Party   0.21%   
Western Cape      
National Party   53.88%   (24 seats)
Democratic Party   33.03%   (10 seats)
Conservative Party   12.82%   
Herstigte Nasionale Party   0.27%   

Out of pure curiosity, the DP's best score in the old Boer Republics outside of Gauteng was 15% in Bloemfontein North. The won two seats - both overwhelmingly english ones - in Gauteng outside of Joburg

Cities      
   
Cape Town      
Democratic Party   48.39%   (9 seats)
National Party   46.68%   (7 seats)
Conservative Party   4.71%   
Herstigte Nasionale Party   0.22%   
Durban      
National Party   46.37%   (6 seats)
Democratic Party   46.19%   (5 seats)
Conservative Party   7.27%   
Independent   0.18%   
Jozi      
National Party   43.44%   (8 seats)
Democratic Party   35.20%   (9 seats)
Conservative Party   21.25%   (2 seats)
Independent   0.07%   
Herstigte Nasionale Party   0.03%   
   
   
Interesting that the final obliteration of the United/New Republic Party leaves Durban appearing as a wholly more liberal city than Johannesburg. And that Cape Town is so much more liberal than either, despite it's white population being not too different (ie english majority, but with a substantial Afrikaans population) to Joburg  - at least on the face of it - demographically

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Part of the issue is the desire to memory-hole the past, I suppose. For different reasons: everything to do with the Ancien Regime is still a cause of real hot fury for the majority, while for the minority it's all a bit of an embarrassment and Have We Not Moved On Now? In the future there will certainly be more interest in things like this - when there's domestic academic interest in how the National Party regime functioned in practice: historical questions like that - but we are not yet at that stage.

[Cassius]

Couple questions:

1) How free and fair were these elections (for the white electorate)?

2) NP and KP electorates seem fairly obvious. Any major differences between NRP and PFP supporters?

To expand a little on Parochial Boy's excellent post regarding the NRP, the party effectively carried the torch for the old United Party's (the party of Smuts) largely incoherent political platform, which could probably be summed up as the 'Rhodesia Solution'. In other words, continued segregation (although not to the extent encoded in apartheid legislation) and (broadly speaking), whites only elections, until some vague, indeterminable future point at which the black population would gradually be encouraged to play a role more commensurate to their proportion of the population in the life of the country. Of course, as we'll see, there were many dissenters from this broad view on both the left and right of the party. In addition, as the NRP formed in 1977, to this broad formula was added support for 'confederation' and 'decentralisation' as the solution to the country's racial issue, something which would later, in large part, be stolen by Botha's National Party.

In terms of MP's and support, in essence the NRP represented the moderate rump of the UP, which started to implode in 1975 when a liberal group based in Transvaal, led by Harry Schwartz, broke off from that party to form the Reform party, before merging with the Progressive party, an older liberal UP breakaway that had split off in 1959 to protest the party's muted response to the government's abolition of the Native Representation Seats, to form the PFP. Although there were attempts to reunify the UP with the PFP prior to the 1977 general election, these ran into the opposition of a group of six right-wing UP MP's led by Myburgh Streicher and John Wiley (both of whom later became National Party cabinet ministers), who themselves split off to form the South African Party, which took a firmly white supremacist stance with regards to the racial question. So what you had left, effectively, were MP's who weren't quite liberal enough to make the jump to the PFP, but also not quite conservative enough to begin the migration to the National Party, most of whom, as Parochial Boy says, were based in rural areas of Natal. As a caveat to that, the provincial NRP was a fair bit more liberal than the federal NRP, as the former still enjoyed support in urban Natal, with that branch of the party pursuing an attempt to try and form a joint government for Natal and the black homeland of KwaZulu.

So, incoherence all round really.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Very much a political force caught ought of its time and not sure what to do.

[H. Ross Peron]

Didn't realize Namibia had representation. Presumably the Germans there voted similarly to the Afrikaners.

[parochial boy]

Yeah, the United Party's 1948 campaign was a thing of beauty. Moves to enfranchise Indian voters, followed by the Natal candidates hurridly disowning that in the face of a single-issue anti-Indian challenge from the likes of the Dominion/South African Party. Smuts promising that whites would remain the "leading race", which would be achieved by enough white immigration for the whites to no longer feel "threatened" by extending the franchise - which worried the Afrikaners who feared they would lose their status as the majority among whites. All on a backdrop of fears about the increasing black urbanisation and fear they would undercut wages for working class whites, Smuts having been perceived by Afrikaner nationalists as too enthusiastic about supporting Britain in WW2. Completel full of these internal contradictions and confusion

Didn't realize Namibia had representation. Presumably the Germans there voted similarly to the Afrikaners.

It did, up until 1977 when it lost its 5 (originally 6) seats as a result of it's "projected" independence - even if in practice that was still a while off.

The one Namibian seat still around in the 1980s was the rather exceptional case of Walvis Bay. As in, Walvis Bay had been conquered by the British in the 1880s, well before South Africa invaded the rest of the territory during WW1, and was incorporated into the Cape Colony rather than South West Africa. The town then remained as part of South Africa after Namibia's independence beforeeventually  being returned to Namibia in 1994. So by the 80's, it was the only remaining seat because, as far as the South Africans were concerned, they were going to keep it (in fact, in 1981 there is no Namibian seat as Walvis Bay was incorporated into the Cape Town Gardens constituency at that time).

As for voting habits, Namibia was a National Party stronghold - only one of it's seats ever didn't go NP, and that was on one solitary occasion. Overall, the Germans did kind of see themselves as fitting quite well into the NP's rhetoric (a deal of anglophobia, aligning sympathies etc... and of course, the German settlement of Namibia, er, makes even the Afrikaners look comparitively benign). But that said, it is worth poitning out that the German community in Namibia is actually pretty small - something in the tens of thousands - and a solid majority of the enfranchised white electorate was Afrikaans.

[icc]

There is a map of divisions in 1989 (not sure when the boundaries changed, but think they were at least the same in ‘87) available online, but unfortunately I am not allowed to post the link until I have posted 20 times - happy to message it to someone so they can post it here (if the site will let me do that …)

I have a cleaned up version, but don’t know how to post images here.

There is clearly a bit of a problem with the boundaries as shown in the Witwatersrand / surrounds, notably with Losberg and Germiston District.