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 franchise used in the Natal Colony, while theoretically not restricted by race, was significantly less liberal than that of the Cape, and no more than a few hundred non-white electors ever qualified. In 1908, an estimated 200 of the 22,786 electors in the colony were of non-European descent, and by 1935, only one remained. [1] By 1958, when the last non-white voters in the Cape were taken off the rolls, Natal too had an all-white electorate. The franchise was also restricted by property and education qualifications until the 1933 general election, following the passage of the Women's Enfranchisement Act, 1930 and the Franchise Laws Amendment Act, 1931. From then on, the franchise was given to all white citizens aged 21 or over, which remained the case until the end of apartheid and the introduction of universal suffrage in 1994. [2]
History
The Port of Durban was one of the two major strongholds of early South African trade unionism (along with the Witwatersrand mines), and this made Umbilo a prominent safe seat for the Labour Party. Its first two elections were won by Unionist-turned-independent Charles Phineas Robinson, who would go on to represent two other Durban seats before retiring from parliament in 1938. Through the 1920s, Umbilo changed hands at every election between Labour and the South African Party, but from 1933 until 1958, it was held continuously by various stripes of leftist. Unlike many safe seats, however, it saw a rapid succession of individual MPs, with no Labour MP holding the seat for more than a single full term. In 1953, it was one of only five seats nationwide held by Labour, alongside neighbouring Umlazi and three seats on the Witwatersrand.
After the 1953 election, the Labour Party went into fatal decline, and in 1958, the United Party's Geoffrey Norman Oldfield took the seat without opposition. In marked contrast to his Labour predecessors, Oldfield would represent Umbilo without interruption for 23 years, joining the conservative New Republic Party after the UP dissolved in 1977. By this time, the voting patterns of the white working class in South Africa had changed considerably, and the NRP held the seat on Oldfield's retirement in 1981, giving way in 1987 to Piet Matthee of the governing National Party. Unlike similar constituencies in Cape Town or Johannesburg, however, Umbilo would not become a safe seat for the NP, and in 1989 they lost the seat to the liberal Democratic Party. The DP's Carole Heeley Charlewood would become the seat's final MP, representing it until the first post-apartheid elections in 1994.
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