Labour Party of South Africa | |
|---|---|
| Leader | Allan Hendrickse |
| Founded | 1969 |
| Dissolved | 1994 |
| Merged into | African National Congress |
| Headquarters | Cape Town |
| Ideology | Coloured people's rights Anti-apartheid |
| Political position | Centre-left to left-wing |
The Labour Party of South Africa [1] (Afrikaans : Arbeidersparty van Suid-Afrika) 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. [2] 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. [3] 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. [4]
The name of the New Labour Party of Peter Marais was meant to evoke Hendrickse's Labour Party. It is not to be confused with the earlier South African Labour Party, which had represented White industrial workers.
| Election | Party leader | Seats | +/– | Position |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1969 | Allan Hendrickse | 26 / 60 |  26 | 2nd |
| 1975 | 35 / 60 | 9 | 1st |
In 1984 the House of Representatives was created as part of the Tricameral Parliament and replaced the Coloured Persons' Representative Council
| Election | Party leader | Votes | % | Seats | +/– | Position |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1984 | Allan Hendrickse | 200,791 | 74.5% | 76 / 80 | 76 | 1st |
| 1989 | 171,930 | 65.0% | 74 / 85 |  2 |  1st |
Tricameralism is the practice of having three legislative or parliamentary chambers. It is contrasted with unicameralism and bicameralism, each of which is 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, albeit, 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-seventh Parliament was first convened on 22 May 2019.
Elections in South Africa are held for the National Assembly, provincial legislatures and municipal councils. Elections follow a five-year cycle, with national and provincial elections held simultaneously and municipal elections held two years later. The electoral system is based on party-list proportional representation, which means that parties are represented in proportion to their electoral support. For municipal councils there is a mixed-member system in which wards elect individual councillors alongside those named from party lists.
The Cabinet of South Africa is the most senior level of the executive branch of the Government of South Africa. It is made up of the President, the Deputy President, and the Ministers.
Helenard Joe Hendrickse, popularly known as Allan Hendrickse, was a South African politician, Congregationalist minister and teacher. He participated in an act of defiance by swimming at a South African beach reserved for Whites only.
The Senate was the upper house of the Parliament of South Africa between 1910 and its abolition from 1 January 1981, and between 1994 and 1997.
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 Black 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 these institutions 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).
Gerald Morkel was the Mayor of Cape Town and Premier of the Western Cape province in South Africa. He later served as a member of the Cape Town City Council for the Democratic Alliance until his retirement from politics in 2011.
Jan Christiaan "Chris" Heunis, DMS was a South African Afrikaner lawyer, politician, member of the National Party and cabinet minister in the governments of John Vorster and P. W. Botha.
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 Coloured Persons Representative Council of the Republic of South Africa was a partially elected council with limited legislative powers, intended to represent coloured South Africans during the apartheid era. It was first elected in 1969, re-elected in 1975, and permanently dissolved in 1980. In 1984 the House of Representatives was created to represent coloured voters in the Tricameral Parliament.
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.
Peter Alroy Charles Hendrickse is a South African politician who represented the African National Congress (ANC) in the National Assembly from 1994 to 2009. During apartheid, he represented the Labour Party, which was led by his father, Allan Hendrickse.
Jacobus Albert Rabie was a South African politician who was Minister for Population Development under President F. W. de Klerk from 1993 to 1994. He served in the apartheid-era House of Representatives throughout its lifespan from 1984 to 1994, representing the Reiger Park constituency, and subsequently served one term in the post-apartheid National Assembly from 1994 to 1999.
Desmond Lockey is a South African businessman and former politician. He represented the Labour Party in the apartheid-era House of Representatives from 1984 to 1994 and then represented the African National Congress (ANC) in the National Assembly from 1994 to 2004. He retired from active politics in 2004 in order to pursue his business career and founded Arch Equity, a billion-rand investment company known for its involvement in black economic empowerment deals.
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