The Republic of South Africa is a unitary parliamentary democratic republic. The President of South Africa serves both as head of state and as head of government. The President is elected by the National Assembly and must retain the confidence of the Assembly in order to remain in office. South Africans also elect provincial legislatures which govern each of the country's nine provinces.
The New National Party (NNP) was a South African political party formed in 1997 as the successor to the National Party, which ruled the country from 1948 to 1994. The name change was an attempt to distance itself from its apartheid past, and reinvent itself as a moderate, mainstream conservative and non-racist federal party. The attempt was largely unsuccessful, and in 2005 the New National Party voted to disband itself.
The Democratic Party (DP) was the name of the South African political party now called the Democratic Alliance. Although the Democratic Party name dates from 1989, the party existed under other labels throughout the apartheid years, when it was the Parliamentary opposition to the ruling National Party's policies.
The National Party, also known as the Nationalist Party, was a political party in South Africa from 1914 to 1997, which was responsible for the implementation of apartheid rule. The party was an Afrikaner ethnic nationalist party, which initially promoted the interests of Afrikaners but later became a stalwart promoter and enactor of white supremacy, for which it is best known. It first became the governing party of the country in 1924. It merged with its rival, the SAP, during the Great Depression, and a splinter faction became the official opposition during World War II and returned to power. With the National Party governing South Africa from 4 June 1948 until 9 May 1994, the country for the bulk of this time was only a de jure or partial democracy, as from 1958 onwards non-white people were barred from voting. In 1990, it began to style itself as simply a South African civic nationalist party, and after the fall of apartheid in 1994, attempted to become a moderate conservative one. The party's reputation was damaged irreparably by perpetrating apartheid, and it rebranded itself as the New National Party in 1997 before eventually dissolving in 2005.
The United Party was a political party in South Africa. It was the country's ruling political party between 1934 and 1948.
The Conservative Party was a far-right South African political party that sought to preserve many aspects of apartheid in the system's final decade, and formed the official opposition in the white-only House of Assembly in the last seven years of minority rule. It declined quickly after apartheid ended, before being merged with the Freedom Front in 2004.
The Progressive Federal Party (PFP) was a South African political party formed in 1977 through merger of the Progressive and Reform parties, eventually changing its name to the Progressive Federal Party. For its duration was the main parliamentary opposition to apartheid, instead advocating power-sharing in South Africa through a federal constitution. From the 1977 election until 1987 it was the official opposition of the country.
Andries Petrus Treurnicht was a South African politician, Minister of Education during the Soweto Riots and for a short time leader of the National Party in Transvaal. In 1982 he founded and led the Conservative Party of South Africa whose successes among the white electorate made him Leader of the Opposition in 1987, a position he retained until his death.
General elections were held in South Africa on 22 April 1970 to elect members of the 166-seat House of Assembly. Parliament was dissolved on 2 March and the deadline for the submission of candidates was 13 March.
General elections were held in South Africa on 29 April 1981. The National Party, under the leadership of P. W. Botha since 1978, lost some support, but achieved another landslide victory, winning 131 of 165 directly elected seats in the House of Assembly.
General elections were held in South Africa on 6 May 1987. The State of Emergency cast a cloud over the elections, which were again won by the National Party (NP) under the leadership of P. W. Botha, although for the first time it faced serious opposition from the right of the South African political spectrum. The election resulted in the creation of the Second Botha Cabinet, which held power until 1989.
The Tricameral Parliament, officially the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa, was the legislature of South Africa between 1984 and 1994, established by the South African Constitution of 1983, which gave a limited political voice to the country's Coloured and Indian population groups. The majority African population group was however still excluded, their interests notionally represented in the governments of the black homelands, or "bantustans", of which they were formally citizens. As the bantustans were largely politically impotent, its principal effect was to further entrench the political power of the White section of the South African population.
The New Republic Party (NRP) was a South African political party. It was formed as the successor to the disbanded United Party (UP) in 1977 and as a merger with the smaller Democratic Party. It drew its support mainly from the then Province of Natal, and tried to strike a moderate course between the apartheid policy of the ruling National Party (NP) and the liberal policies of the Progressive Federal Party (PFP).
The apartheid system in South Africa was ended through a series of bilateral and multi-party negotiations between 1990 and 1993. The negotiations culminated in the passage of a new interim Constitution in 1993, a precursor to the Constitution of 1996; and in South Africa's first non-racial elections in 1994, won by the African National Congress (ANC) liberation movement.
Harry Heinz Schwarz was a South African lawyer, statesman and long-time political opposition leader against apartheid in South Africa, who eventually served as the South African Ambassador to the United States during the country's transition to majority rule.
Zacharias Johannes de Beer was a South African politician, businessman and diplomat. A liberal Afrikaner, he was the last federal leader of the Progressive Federal Party and then the co-federal leader of the Democratic Party.
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.
Jan Hendrik "Jannie" Momberg was a South African politician, businessman, and sports administrator who served in the South African Parliament from 1989 to 2001. A former member of the National Party (NP), Momberg's opposition to apartheid led him to become a founding member of the Democratic Party in 1989, and he joined the African National Congress (ANC) in 1992.
Jan van Eck was a Dutch–South African politician who served in opposition in the South African House of Assembly from 1986 to 1994. He represented the Progressive Federal Party from 1986 to 1987 and the Democratic Party from 1989 to 1992; at other times, he sat as an independent.
Andries Stephanus Beyers is a South African politician who served in Parliament from 1992 to 1999. He was the national secretary of the far-right Conservative Party from 1987 to 1992 but he later represented the National Party.
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South Africaportal 
