The Union of South Africa was the historical predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the Cape, Natal, Transvaal, and Orange River colonies. It included the territories that were formerly a part of the South African Republic and the Orange Free State.
The Second Anglo-Boer War had no sooner commenced with the ultimatum of the Transvaal Republic on 9 October 1899, than Mr Schreiner found himself called upon to deal with the conduct of Cape rebels. The rebels joined the invading forces of President Steyn, whose false assurances Mr Schreiner had offered to an indignant House of Assembly only a few weeks before. The war on the part of the Republics was evidently not to be merely one of self-defence. It was one of aggression and aggrandisement. Mr Schreiner ultimately addressed, as prime minister, a sharp remonstrance to President Steyn for allowing his burghers to invade the colony. He also co-operated with Sir Alfred Milner, and used his influence to restrain the Bond.
Elections in South Africa are held for the National Assembly, provincial legislatures and municipal councils. Elections follow a five-year cycle, with national and provincial elections held simultaneously and municipal elections held two years later. The electoral system is based on party-list proportional representation, which means that parties are represented in proportion to their electoral support. For municipal councils there is a mixed-member system in which wards elect individual councillors alongside those named from party lists.
John Xavier Merriman was the last prime minister of the Cape Colony before the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910.
The Unionist Party was a pre-apartheid South African political party, which contested elections to the Union of South Africa parliament from the 1910 South African general election until its merger into the South African Party just before the 1921 South African general election.
General elections were held in South Africa on 15 September 1910 to elect the 121 members of the House of Assembly. They were the first general election after the Union of South Africa was created on 31 May 1910.
Elections in Southern Rhodesia were used from 1899 to 1923 to elect part of the Legislative Council and from 1924 to elect the whole of the Legislative Assembly which governed the colony. Since the granting of self-government in 1923, Southern Rhodesia used the Westminster parliamentary system as its basis of government. The Political party that had most of the seats in the Legislative Assembly became the government. The person in charge of this bloc was the Premier, later renamed Prime Minister, who then chose his cabinet from his elected colleagues.
The South Africa Act 1909 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that created the Union of South Africa out of the former Cape, Natal, Orange River, and Transvaal colonies. The Act also allowed for potential admission of Rhodesia into the Union, a proposal rejected by Rhodesian colonists in a 1922 referendum. The draft proposal was supported by the four colonial parliaments, but was opposed by Cape Colony premier W. P. Schreiner, who raised concerns that it would strip rights from non-white South Africans.
François Stephanus Malan PC, usually called F. S. Malan or just F. S., was a South African politician.
Sir John Gordon Sprigg, was an English-born colonial administrator and politician who served as prime minister of the Cape Colony on four different occasions.
Although the Democratic Alliance of South Africa in its present form is fairly new, its roots can be traced far back in South African political history, through a complex sequence of splits and mergers.
Sir James Molteno, was an influential barrister and parliamentarian of South Africa.
The Afrikaner Bond was founded as an anti-imperialist political party in 19th century southern Africa. While its origins were largely in the Orange Free State, it came to have a significant presence across the region, and especially in the Cape Colony and the Transvaal.
The Progressive Party of the Cape Colony was a political party in the Cape Parliament that was primarily composed of and supported by white immigrants to the Cape. It supported pro-imperialist policies, and was in power from 1900 until 1908.
The Cape Qualified Franchise was the system of non-racial franchise that was adhered to in the Cape Colony, and in the Cape Province in the early years of the Union of South Africa. Qualifications for the right to vote at parliamentary elections were applied equally to all men, regardless of race.
The Parliament of the Cape of Good Hope functioned as the legislature of the Cape Colony, from its founding in 1853, until the creation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, when it was dissolved and the Parliament of South Africa was established. It consisted of the House of Assembly and the legislative council.
Elections for the House of Assembly were held in Cape Colony in 1904. The election was a victory for the Progressives under Leander Starr Jameson, who had first achieved prominence for his role in the ill-fated Jameson Raid.
The Eastern Province Separatist League was a loose political movement of the 19th century Cape Colony. It fought not for independence, but for a separate colony in the eastern half of the Cape Colony independent from the Cape government, with a more restrictive political system and an expansionist policy eastwards against the remaining independent Xhosa states. It was crushed in the 1870s, and many of its members later moved to the new pro-imperialist, Rhodesian “progressive party”.
The National Convention, also known as the Convention on the Closer Union of South Africa or the Closer Union Convention, was a constitutional convention held between 1908 and 1909 in Durban, Cape Town and Bloemfontein. The convention led to the adoption of the South Africa Act by the British Parliament and thus to the creation of the Union of South Africa. The four colonies of the area that would become South Africa - the Cape Colony, Natal Colony, the Orange River Colony and the Transvaal Colony - were represented at the convention, along with a delegation from Rhodesia. There were 33 delegates in total, with the Cape being represented by 12, the Transvaal eight, the Orange River five, Natal five, and Rhodesia three. The convention was held behind closed doors, in the fear that a public affair would lead delegates to refuse compromising on contentious areas of disagreement. All the delegates were white men, a third of them were farmers, ten were lawyers, and some were academics. Two-thirds had fought on either side of the Second Boer War.
Cape independence, also known by the portmanteau CapeXit, is a political movement that seeks the independence of the Western Cape province from South Africa.
