National Party, South Africa

National Party, South Africa A political party founded by Hertzog in 1914 in reaction to the emphasis of the South African Party (SAP) of Louis Botha and Smuts on harmony between Imperial Britain and South Africa in order to forge the English-speaking and the Afrikaans-speaking Whites into one nation. By contrast, the National Party (NP) was an Afrikaner party committed to promoting Afrikaner issues, such as the Afrikaans language and culture, and greater emancipation from the British Crown. On racial issues, its ‘fundamental principle’ was ‘the supremacy of the European population in the spirit of Christian trusteeship, utterly rejecting any attempt to mix the races’.

The NP was a main focus of Afrikaner opposition to South Africa's participation in World War I through the occupation of German South-West Africa (Namibia). Originally mainly a rural party, it increasingly gained the support of (White) urban workers, who never forgave Smuts for his suppression of the 1922 trade-union-sponsored Rand Revolt. Thus, in 1924 it was able to form the first government in coalition with the Labour Party. When, during the Great Depression, Hertzog decided to form a coalition with Smuts and to merge the NP with the SAP in 1934, a minority led by Malan in the Cape refused to merge and formed the Gesuiwerde Nasionale Party (Purified National Party). In response to South Africa's entry into World War II, Hertzog and Malan briefly reunited to form the Herenigte Nasionale Party (Reunited National Party), but Hertzog soon broke away again to form the Afrikaner Party.

With the support of the latter, Malan won a surprise victory in the 1948 elections, despite having gained only 37.2 per cent of the vote, against 47.9 per cent for Smuts' United Party. The NP won all subsequent elections until 1994, mainly because its support remained linked to a sense of Afrikaner identity and an Afrikaner ‘milieu’. This was also sustained by the conservative Dutch Reformed Church, by clubs and societies dedicated to the preservation of Afrikaner culture and domination, and by the Afrikaner press. It also obtained the support of an increasing number of English-speaking Whites, as the economic benefits of apartheid to all Whites became apparent. After the rule of Vorster, when the party became more pragmatic about its apartheid ideology, the NP was painfully aware of the threat of conservative breakaway movements. In 1969, some dissidents broke away to form the Herstigte Nasionale Party (Re-established National Party), while in 1982 the arch-conservative minister of the Dutch Reformed Church, Andries Treurnicht (b. 1921) led another breakaway movement to form the Conservative Party.

In response to considerable gains made by these conservative groups after the NP's commitment to the end of apartheid, De Klerk called a referendum for 17 March 1992, in which the NP's new course was approved by 68.7 per cent of the (White) votes cast. The NP gained 20.4 per cent of the vote in the 1994 elections, and managed to attract enough of the ‘Coloured’ (mixed-race) vote to become the largest party in the Province of the Western Cape. However, in subsequent years the NP tried to expand its potential electoral base toward the Black population, as a result of which it lost much of its core support amongst Whites. Renamed the New National Party (NNP), in the 1998 general elections it obtained only 6.9 per cent of the vote, so that its parliamentary representation declined from 82 to twenty eight seats. In 2000, it merged with the Democratic Party to form the Democratic Alliance.