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 South African Party (SAP), during the 1929-1939 Great Depression, and a splinter faction, the Re-United National Party became the official opposition during World War II and won power in 1948. 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 Freedom Front Plus is a right-wing political party in South Africa that was formed in 1994. It is led by Pieter Groenewald. Since 2024, it is a part of the current South African government of national unity together with the African National Congress (ANC), the Democratic Alliance and other parties.
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 Herstigte Nasionale Party is a South African political party which was formed as a far-right splinter group of the now defunct National Party in 1969. The party name was commonly abbreviated as HNP, evoking the Herenigde Nasionale Party, although colloquially they were also known as the Herstigtes. The party is, unlike other splinter factions from the National Party, still active but politically irrelevant.
General Constand Laubscher Viljoen was a South African Army officer and politician. He co-founded the Afrikaner Volksfront and later founded the Freedom Front. He is partly credited with having prevented the outbreak of armed violence by disaffected white South Africans prior to post-apartheid general elections.
A Volkstaat, also called a Boerestaat, is a proposed White homeland for Afrikaners within the borders of South Africa, most commonly proposed as a fully independent Boer/Afrikaner nation. The proposed state would exclude Afrikaans-speaking Coloureds but accept South Africans of English ancestry and other White South Africans, if they accept Afrikaner culture and customs.
General elections were held in South Africa on 26 May 1948. They represented a turning point in the country's history, as despite receiving just under half of the votes cast, the United Party and its leader, incumbent Prime Minister Jan Smuts, were ousted by the Herenigde Nasionale Party (HNP) led by D. F. Malan, a Dutch Reformed cleric.
General elections were held in South Africa on 6 September 1989, the last under apartheid. Snap elections had been called early by the recently elected head of the National Party (NP), F. W. de Klerk, who was in the process of replacing P. W. Botha as the country's president, and his expected program of reform to include further retreat from the policy of apartheid. The creation of the Conservative Party had realigned the NP as a moderate party, now almost certain to initiate negotiations with the black opposition, with liberal opposition openly seeking a new constitutional settlement on liberal democratic and federalist principles.
Ferdinand Hartzenberg was a South African politician and the second and last leader of the Conservative Party in South Africa between 1993 and its merger with the Freedom Front in 2004. He obtained a DSc (Agriculture) from the University of Pretoria.
National Action was a short-lived South African political party formed in December 2001 by the Afrikaner Eenheidsbeweging's (AEB) Cassie Aucamp and former National Party minister Danie Schutte. Aucump retained dual membership of the parties before leaving the Afrikaner Eenheidsbeweging (AEB) in the 2003 floor-crossing window. The AEB, along with other Afrikaner parties, was merging into the Freedom Front Plus to contest the 2004 elections but the National Action, claiming to support Afrikaner interests, remained separate, and competed in the 2004 elections. It won no seats in the National Assembly of South Africa or any of the provincial legislatures. It did not contest the 2009 elections.
Jacob Albertus Marais was an Afrikaner nationalist thinker, author, politician, Member of Parliament, and leader of the Herstigte Nasionale Party (HNP) from 1977 until his death in 2000.
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.
Front National was a South African far-right political party formed in late 2013 as a successor to the Federale Vryheidsparty. The party promoted secession and Afrikaner nationalism. Front National strikes no distinction between English-speaking Whites and Afrikaners in South Africa. The party reformed in January 2020 as the Afrikaner Self-determination Party.
The Accord on Afrikaner self-determination is a South African political accord that recognises the right of the Afrikaner people on self-determination. The accord was signed by the Freedom Front, the African National Congress and the National Party-led South African government on 23 April 1994.
Willem Abraham Stephanus Aucamp is a South African politician who has been National Spokesperson of the Democratic Alliance (DA) and a Member of the National Assembly of South Africa since 2024. Prior to his election as an MP, he was one of six permanent delegates from the Northern Cape to the National Council of Provinces from 2019 to 2024.
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.
Casperus "Cassie" Aucamp is a retired South African politician and former Christian minister who was the inaugural leader of the Afrikaner Eenheidsbeweging (AEB) and later the inaugural leader of Nasionale Aksie (NA). He served in the National Assembly from 1999 to 2004.
Daniel Pieter Antonie "Danie" Schutte is a South African politician and lawyer who was the last Minister of Home Affairs of the apartheid era from 1993 to 1994. He represented the National Party (NP) both in the apartheid-era House of Assembly and in the post-apartheid National Assembly.
Isak Dawid van Zyl is a South African politician who represented the National Party in the National Assembly during the first democratic Parliament. He was elected in the 1994 general election and was a member of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
