Moorreesburg (House of Assembly of South Africa constituency)

Moorreesburg
Former constituency for the South African House of Assembly
Province	Cape of Good Hope
Electorate	12,114 (1977)
Former constituency
Created	1933
Abolished	1981
Number of members	1
Last MHA	P. S. Marais (NP)
Replaced by	Malmesbury Piketberg

Moorreesburg was a constituency in the Cape Province of South Africa, which existed from 1933 to 1981. It covered a part of the Swartland region centred on the town of Moorreesburg. Throughout its existence it elected one member to the House of Assembly and one to the Cape Provincial Council.

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

Like many rural constituencies across the Cape, Moorreesburg was a conservative seat with a largely Afrikaans-speaking electorate. It was held throughout its existence by the National Party, and only had two MPs over its 48-year history. Frans Erasmus, its first MP, was one of the 19 Nationalist MPs who joined D. F. Malan’s Purified National Party rather than follow the majority of the party into the United Party. He would continue to represent Moorreesburg in parliament until 1961, and became a cabinet minister after Malan won the premiership in 1948. He retired from parliament in 1961, and his successor, Pieter Sarel Marais, represented the seat until its abolition twenty years later.

Members

Election		Member	Party
	1933	Frans Erasmus	National
	1934		GNP
	1938
	1943		HNP
	1948
	1953		National
	1958
	1961	P. S. Marais
	1966
	1970
	1974
	1977
	1981	constituency abolished

^{[2] [3] [4]}

Detailed results

Elections in the 1930s

This section is an excerpt from Results of the 1933 South African general election § Moorreesburg.[ edit ]

General election 1933: Moorreesburg

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	National	Frans Erasmus	2,923	61.4	New
	Independent	J. J. de Kock	1,788	37.5	New
	Independent	W. H. Lategan	15	0.3	New
Rejected ballots			38	0.8	N/A
Majority			1,135	23.8	N/A
Turnout			4,764	76.1	N/A
	National win (new seat)

References

1. "EISA South Africa: Historical franchise arrangements". Eisa.org.za. Archived from the original on 9 May 2013. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
2. Schoeman, B.M. (1977). Parlementêre verkiesings in Suid-Afrika 1910-1976. Pretoria: Aktuele Publikasies.
3. Standard Encyclopaedia of Southern Africa (1972). "House of Assembly" (vol. 5, pp. 617–636). Cape Town: Nasionale Opvoedkundige Uitgewery (Nasou).
4. South Africa 1980/81: Official Yearbook of the Republic of South Africa. Johannesburg: Chris van Rensburg Publications.