Franchise notes
When the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910, the electoral qualifications in use in each pre-existing colony were kept in place. The Cape Colony had implemented a "colour-blind" franchise known as the Cape Qualified Franchise, which included all adult literate men owning more than £75 worth of property (controversially raised from £25 in 1892), and this initially remained in effect after the colony became the Cape Province. As of 1908, 22,784 out of 152,221 electors in the Cape Colony were "Native or Coloured". Eligibility to serve in Parliament and the Provincial Council, however, was restricted to whites from 1910 onward.
The first challenge to the Cape Qualified Franchise came with the Women's Enfranchisement Act, 1930 and the Franchise Laws Amendment Act, 1931, which extended the vote to women and removed property qualifications for the white population only – non-white voters remained subject to the earlier restrictions. In 1936, the Representation of Natives Act removed all black voters from the common electoral roll and introduced three "Native Representative Members", white MPs elected by the black voters of the province and meant to represent their interests in particular. A similar provision was made for Coloured voters with the Separate Representation of Voters Act, 1951, and although this law was challenged by the courts, it went into effect in time for the 1958 general election, which was thus held with all-white voter rolls for the first time in South African history. The all-white franchise would continue until the end of apartheid and the introduction of universal suffrage in 1994. [1]
History
Cape Town Gardens was one of the four constituencies created out of the multi-member Cape Town seat for the Cape Parliament. At the time, it covered the entire City Bowl south of Leeuwen Street and Roeland Street, as well as the seaside suburb of Clifton. The latter was moved into the Sea Point seat in 1924, and from that point until its abolition, the constituency saw only minor changes. While the other three seats with the Cape Town prefix were all abolished between 1924 and 1958, Gardens lasted all the way until the end of first-past-the-post elections in 1994.
Like the rest of Cape Town, it was a largely English-speaking seat and loyal to the pro-British side of South African politics. However, its initial Unionist MP, William Duncan Baxter (former Cape Town mayor and son-in-law of Cape Town Central MP John William Jagger), would only hold the seat until 1920, when the Labour candidate R. Forsyth took it as part of that party's wave (Labour also took Salt River and Woodstock in the same year). The following year, South African Party candidate George William Hawley took the seat, but held it for only a few months, with Forsyth taking it back in a by-election later that year. The SAP narrowly won it back in 1924, and narrowly defended it in 1929 despite the Labour candidate being the former Cape Town Castle MP Morris Alexander. C. W. A. Coulter, now the seat's MP, objected to the SAP's merger into the United Party in 1934 and joined the Dominion Party, but was thoroughly defeated by the UP candidate in the 1938 general election. From 1948 to 1958 the seat was represented by Abraham Jonker, who left the UP in 1953 and founded the National Conservative Party, later joining the governing National Party on the NCP's collapse. That was the last time a party other than the main liberal opposition held Gardens, with its last MP being the Democratic Party's federal chairman, Ken Andrew.
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