Tricameralism is the practice of having three legislative or parliamentary chambers. It is contrasted with unicameralism and bicameralism, which are both far more common.
The State President of the Republic of South Africa was the head of state of South Africa from 1961 to 1994. The office was established when the country became a republic on 31 May 1961, outside the Commonwealth of Nations, and Queen Elizabeth II ceased to be Queen of South Africa. The position of Governor-General of South Africa was accordingly abolished. From 1961 to 1984, the post was largely ceremonial. After constitutional reforms enacted in 1983 and taking effect in 1984, the State President became an executive post, and its holder was both head of state and head of government.
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-eighth Parliament was first convened on 14 June 2024.
Pieter Willem Botha, was a South African politician. He served as the last prime minister of South Africa from 1978 to 1984 and the first executive state president of South Africa from 1984 to 1989.
Amichand Rajbansi was a South African politician. He was a former Chairman of the Ministers' Council of the House of Delegates Tricameral parliamentary chamber for Indian people, and leader of the Minority Front.
The United Democratic Front (UDF) was a South African popular front that existed from 1983 to 1991. The UDF comprised more than 400 public organizations including trade unions, students' unions, women's and parachurch organizations. The UDF's goal was to establish a "non-racial, united South Africa in which segregation is abolished and in which society is freed from institutional and systematic racism." Its slogan was "UDF Unites, Apartheid Divides." The Front was established in 1983 to oppose the introduction of the Tricameral Parliament by the white-dominated National Party government, and dissolved in 1991 during the early stages of the transition to democracy.
General elections were held in South Africa in August 1984 to elect Coloured and Indian representatives to their respective houses of the Tricameral Parliament. The Coloured elections for the House of Representatives took place on 22 August, and resulted in a victory for the Labour Party, headed by the Reverend Allan Hendrickse, which won 76 of the 80 seats. The Indian elections for the House of Delegates were held on 28 August and saw the National People's Party emerge as the largest party, winning 18 of the 40 seats. The Indian elections were opposed by the United Democratic Front and were marked by boycotts and protests. Despite the Prohibition of Political Interference Act of 1968 which banned mixed-race political parties, nine Indian members of Hendricke's Labour Party stood as independents, one of whom won a seat and subsequently joined the NPP.
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.
A referendum on a new constitution was held in South Africa on 2 November 1983 in which the white population was given the opportunity to approve or reject the Constitution of 1983. This constitution introduced the Tricameral Parliament, in which Coloured and Indian South Africans would be represented in separate parliamentary chambers, while black Africans, who were the majority of South Africa's population, would remain unrepresented. The referendum passed with 66.3% of voters voting "Yes"; consequently the new constitution came into force on 3 September 1984.
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).
Glenn Robin Ware Babb was a former politician and diplomat for the former apartheid government in South Africa. More recently he was a businessman and entrepreneur. From 1985 to 1987 he had a high-profile posting in Canada where he was his government's ambassador to Ottawa and made frequent public statements against the anti-apartheid movement and in defence of his government and in opposition to the movement for economic sanctions on and disinvestment from South Africa that the Canadian government was leading internationally.
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 Labour Party of South Africa was a South African political party founded in 1969 and led for many years by Allan Hendrickse. Although avowedly opposed to apartheid, it participated in the Coloured Persons Representative Council. It opposed the guerrilla struggle of Umkhonto we Sizwe and the call for international sanctions against South Africa. The party later dominated the House of Representatives in the Tricameral Parliament from its foundation in 1984 until 1992, winning 76 of the 80 seats in the 1984 elections and 69 in those of 1989. When the National Party of F. W. de Klerk decided to admit non-White members, however, a substantial number of members of the House of Representatives who had been members of Labour crossed the floor to join the Nationalists. In 1992, a group of 36 such former Labour members led by Jac Rabie engineered a vote of no confidence in Hendrickse's Labour government. Losing influence at the polls, Hendrickse concluded that the Labour Party had fulfilled its uses, and the party was disbanded in 1994, with Hendrickse and his followers joining the African National Congress.
The House of Representatives was an 80-seat body in the Tricameral Parliament of South Africa which existed from 1984-1994. It was reserved for Coloured South Africans. The body was elected twice; in 1984 and 1989. Electoral turnouts for the House of Representatives were poor.
The National People's Party was a South African political party founded in 1981 by Amichand Rajbansi. It participated in political structures established for Indian South Africans during the apartheid era: first the South African Indian Council, and then the House of Delegates in the Tricameral Parliament.
The 1984 South African presidential election was the first to be held under the new South African Constitution of 1983, which abolished the office of Prime Minister and merged its powers into the position of State President, who was now both head of state and government. According to the new basic law, the State President was to be elected by an electoral college composed of members of the majority party in each of the chambers of the new tricameral parliament. As such, the electoral college was composed of 50 National Party members elected by the House of Assembly, 25 Labor Party members elected by the House of Representatives, and 13 members of the National People's Party elected by from the House of Delegates.
The 1989 South African presidential election resulted in the election of Frederik Willem de Klerk as State President.
Solidarity was a political party created in the lead-up to the 1984 South African general election, which determined the makeup of the first House of Delegates, the body within the Apartheid Tricameral Parliament reserved for Indian South Africans. It took its name from the Polish trade union.p. 40 Its first leader was JN Reddy, an influential banker and businessman with a number of company directorships. To be able to lead the party, Reddy relinquished some of his business interests. Another important party member was Pat Poovalingam, the chairman of weekly newspaper "The Graphic". Solidarity appealed more to South Africans with Southern Indian roots, while Amichand Rajbansi's National People's Party appealed more to those with a North Indian heritage.
Jayaram Narainsamy Reddy popularly known as JN Reddy, was a South African politician who was the leader of the Solidarity party which was represented in the House of Delegates, the body within the Apartheid Tricameral Parliament reserved for Indian South Africans.p.60 He was the leader of the opposition from 1984 to 1989, and the leader of the majority party in the House from 1989 to 1993.
Salamuddi (Salam) Abram is a retired South African politician. He served as a member of Parliament from 1999 until 2014.
