The election for the ninth Senate of South Africa took place on November 16, 1970. The result was a victory for the ruling National Party, winning 31 out of the 44 elected seats and 41 out of the total 54 seats.[1]
According to section 29(2)(b) of the 1961 constitution, "at least one of the two senators nominated from each province under this section shall be thoroughly acquainted, by reason of official experience or otherwise, with the interests of the coloured population in the province for which the said senator is nominated". The seat of an additional (white) senator nominated in accordance with section 7 of the Separate Representation of Voters Act, 1951"on the ground of his thorough acquaintance, by reason of his official experience or otherwise, with the reasonable wants and wishes of the non-European [i.e. Coloured, as black Africans were explicitly excluded from the definition under section 1 (ii) of the 1951 act] population in the province of the Cape of Good Hope", had been vacant since 1962 and was finally abolished by the Separate Representation of Voters Amendment Act, 1968 with effect from the elections in 1970.
The Parliament of the Republic of South Africa is South Africa's legislature; under the present Constitution of South Africa, the bicameral Parliament comprises a National Assembly and a National Council of Provinces. The current twenty-seventh Parliament was first convened on 22 May 2019.
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.
Canadian Senate divisions refers to two aspects of the Senate of Canada. First, it refers to the division of Canada into four regional Senate divisions of 24 senators each, as set out in section 22 of the Constitution Act, 1867. The four regions are the Western Provinces, Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes. These regions are intended to serve the Senate's purpose of providing regional representation in the Parliament of Canada, in contrast to the popular representation that the House of Commons is intended to provide. While not within any of the original four Senate divisions, Senate seats are also allocated to Newfoundland and Labrador and the three territories. The four divisions can be expanded when the need arises to have an extra two senators appointed to each regional division.
The Senate was the upper house of the Parliament of South Africa between 1910 and its abolition from 1 January 1981, and between 1994 and 1997.
General elections were held in South Africa on 18 October 1961. They were the first general elections after South Africa became a republic following the 1960 South African referendum. The National Party under Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd won a majority in the House of Assembly.
General elections were held in South Africa on 15 April 1953. The elections consolidated the position of the National Party under D. F. Malan, which won an absolute majority of the 156 elected seats in the House of Assembly, also receiving the most votes. Its first-time majority of the white electorate would be retained until the 1989 elections.
General elections were held in South Africa on 16 April 1958. The result was a victory for the National Party, now under the leadership of J.G. Strijdom after the retirement of Daniel Malan in 1954. The opposition United Party campaigned for the first time under De Villiers Graaff, who would remain party leader for two decades.
General elections were held in South Africa on 30 March 1966. The result was another comprehensive victory for the National Party under Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd.
The system of racial segregation and oppression in South Africa known as apartheid was implemented and enforced by many acts and other laws. This legislation served to institutionalize racial discrimination and the dominance by white people over people of other races. While the bulk of this legislation was enacted after the election of the National Party government in 1948, it was preceded by discriminatory legislation enacted under earlier British and Afrikaner governments. Apartheid is distinguished from segregation in other countries by the systematic way in which it was formalized in law.
The House of Assembly was the lower house of the Parliament of South Africa from 1910 to 1981, the sole parliamentary chamber between 1981 and 1984, and latterly the white representative house of the Tricameral Parliament from 1984 to 1994, when it was replaced by the current National Assembly. Throughout its history, it was exclusively constituted of white members who were elected to office predominantly by white citizens, though until 1960 and 1970, respectively, some Black Africans and Coloureds in the Cape Province voted under a restricted form of suffrage.
The Cape Provincial Council was the provincial council of the Cape Province of South Africa. It was created by the South Africa Act 1909, with effect from the formation of the Union of South Africa on 31 May 1910. The first election to the provincial council took place on 15 September 1910.
The Constitution of 1961 was the fundamental law of South Africa for two decades. Under the terms of the constitution South Africa left the Commonwealth and became a republic.
The Separate Representation of Voters Amendment Act, 1968 was an act of the Parliament of South Africa enacted under the government of B. J. Vorster, which repealed the Separate Representation of Voters Act, 1951. This had the effect of removing the four members of the House of Assembly who were elected by Coloured voters in the Cape Province as well as abolishing the additional nominated seat in the Senate for the "non-European" population of the Cape Province, that had only been filled once in 1957 and had been vacant since 1962. Subsequently the House of Assembly would be elected solely by white voters.
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 Coloured vote constitutional crisis, also known as the Coloured vote case, was a constitutional crisis that occurred in the Union of South Africa during the 1950s as the result of an attempt by the Nationalist government to remove coloured voters in the Union's Cape Province from the common voters' rolls. It developed into a dispute between the judiciary and the other branches of government over the power of Parliament to amend an entrenched clause in the South Africa Act and the power of the Appellate Division to overturn the amendment as unconstitutional. The crisis ended when the government enlarged the Senate and altered its method of election, allowing the amendment to be successfully enacted.
The first election for the South African Senate took place as a result of the creation of the Union of South Africa through the South Africa Act 1909. The Act included special provisions for the selection of the first elected Senators. The Union Parliament was prohibited from changing the arrangements for the Senate during its first ten years.
The 1955 election for the sixth Senate of South Africa occurred because of the wish of National Party Prime Minister Johannes Strijdom to amend one of the entrenched clauses in the Constitution, to separate Coloured voters from whites. However, since his party did not have the constitutionally required two-thirds majority in a joint session of both houses of Parliament, it was decided to alter the composition and electoral system for the Senate, to enable the Separate Representation of Voters Act 1951 to be validated. Consequently, Strijdom had the Senate Act 1955 passed to amend the constitution.
The election for the seventh Senate of South Africa took place on October 26, 1960, with the appointment of nominated Senators by the Governor-General taking place on November 16, 1960.
The election for the eighth Senate of South Africa took place on November 26, 1965, the first election to that body to be held under the 1961 republican constitution and the first in which a representative of the coloured community was not elected. The result was a victory for the ruling National Party, winning 30 out of the 43 elected seats and 40 out of the total 53 seats.
The election for the tenth Senate of South Africa took place on May 30, 1974. The result was a victory for the ruling National Party, winning 32 out of the 44 elected seats and 42 out of the total 54 seats. This was the final election for the Senate before it was abolished in 1980 and replaced by the President's Council, an advisory body to the State President designed to draft a new constitution that would allow more political participation to the colored and Indian populations in South Africa.
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