Ventersdorp | |
---|---|
Former constituency for the South African House of Assembly | |
![]() Location of Ventersdorp within South Africa (1981) | |
Province | Transvaal |
Electorate | 16,911 (1989) |
Former constituency | |
Created | 1920 1981 |
Abolished | 1966 1994 |
Number of members | 1 |
Last MHA | S. P. van Vuuren (CP) |
Replaced by | Carletonville (1966) North West (1994) |
Ventersdorp was a constituency in the Transvaal Province of South Africa, which existed from 1920 to 1966 and again from 1981 to 1994. Named after the town of Ventersdorp, it covered a rural area in the western Transvaal. Throughout its existence it elected one member to the House of Assembly and one to the Transvaal Provincial Council.
When the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910, the electoral qualifications in use in each pre-existing colony were kept in place. In the Transvaal Colony, and its predecessor the South African Republic, the vote was restricted to white men, and as such, elections in the Transvaal Province were held on a whites-only franchise from the beginning. 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. Non-whites remained disenfranchised until the end of apartheid and the introduction of universal suffrage in 1994. [1]
Like most of the rural Transvaal, Ventersdorp was a conservative seat with a largely Afrikaans-speaking electorate. In its early years it was a marginal seat, with the South African and National parties fighting several close contests, but that era ended with the election of independent Jacob Wilkens in 1933. Wilkens was re-elected in 1938 for the United Party, but left that party alongside J. B. M. Hertzog in 1939, and was defeated for re-election by a new UP candidate in 1943. He returned one final time in 1948, this time for the Herenigde Nasionale Party, which took the seat as part of their sweep of the rural Transvaal. In 1966, the constituency was abolished and its MP, Johannes Casper Greyling, moved to the new seat of Carletonville.
Ventersdorp was recreated in 1981, and won by Benjamin Hugh Wilkens for the National Party, but in 1987 it was one of many rural Transvaal seats to fall to Andries Treurnicht's new hard-right Conservative Party. Stefanus Petrus van Vuuren, the Conservative MP elected in 1987, would represent Ventersdorp until the end of apartheid.
Election | Member | Party | |
---|---|---|---|
1920 | B. I. J. van Heerden | South African | |
1921 | |||
1924 | L. J. Boshoff | National | |
1929 | |||
1933 | Jacob Wilkens | Independent | |
1938 | United | ||
1939 | HNP | ||
1943 | H. J. Visser | United | |
1948 | Jacob Wilkens | HNP | |
1953 | J. C. Greyling | National | |
1958 | |||
1961 | |||
1966 | Constituency abolished | ||
Election | Member | Party | |
---|---|---|---|
1981 | B. H. Wilkens | National | |
1987 | S. P. van Vuuren | Conservative | |
1989 | |||
1994 | Constituency abolished | ||
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
South African | B. I. J. van Heerden | 1,025 | 52.0 | New | |
National | L. J. Boshoff | 945 | 48.0 | New | |
Majority | 80 | 4.0 | N/A | ||
Turnout | 1,970 | 70.7 | N/A | ||
South African win (new seat) |
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
South African | B. I. J. van Heerden | 1,124 | 51.9 | −0.1 | |
National | L. J. Boshoff | 1,042 | 48.1 | +0.1 | |
Majority | 82 | 3.8 | −0.2 | ||
Turnout | 2,166 | 71.0 | +0.3 | ||
South African hold | Swing | -0.1 |