General elections were held in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

on 15 September 1910 to elect the 121 members of the

House of Assembly House of Assembly is a name given to the legislature or lower house of a bicameral parliament. In some countries this may be at a subnational level. Historically, in British Crown colonies as the colony gained more internal responsible g ...

. They were the first general election after the Union of South Africa was created on 31 May 1910. The elections were held alongside the first election to the provincial councils of

Cape Province The Province of the Cape of Good Hope (), commonly referred to as the Cape Province () and colloquially as The Cape (), was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequently the Republic of South Africa. It encompassed the old Cape Co ...

and Transvaal. Those councils used the same electoral districts as those for the House of Assembly seats in the province. The first election for the provincial councils of Natal and

Orange Free State The Orange Free State ( ; ) was an independent Boer-ruled sovereign republic under British suzerainty in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, which ceased to exist after it was defeated and surrendered to the British Em ...

, which did not use the same constituency boundaries as the House of Assembly, took place at a later date. Although the Unionist Party received the most votes, the alliance of parties led by General Louis Botha won a slim majority. The Unionist Party became the official opposition. Botha's alliance would later unite as the South African Party.

Electoral system

The

South Africa Act 1909 The South Africa Act 1909 (9 Edw. 7. c. 9) was an Act of Parliament (UK), act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that created the Union of South Africa out of the former Cape Colony, Cape, Colony of Natal, Natal, Orange River Colony, Orange ...

provided that the franchise in each province should be the same as that in the corresponding colony before the Union, until altered by the Union Parliament. The Act included entrenching clauses, providing that black and coloured voters could only be removed from the common voters roll in the Cape of Good Hope, by legislation passed by a two-thirds majority by both houses of Parliament in joint session. The franchise, in all parts of the Union, was limited to men over the age of 21. There were some additional qualifications and disqualifications which varied between provinces. The franchise in the Orange Free State and Transvaal was limited to white men. The traditional "

Cape Qualified Franchise The Cape Qualified Franchise was the system of multi-racial Suffrage, franchise that was adhered to in the Cape Colony, and in the Cape Province in the early years of the Union of South Africa. Qualifications for the right to vote at parliamenta ...

" system of the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...

was based on property and wage qualifications, equally open to people of all races. At the time of the

National Convention The National Convention () was the constituent assembly of the Kingdom of France for one day and the French First Republic for its first three years during the French Revolution, following the two-year National Constituent Assembly and the ...

in 1908, which drafted the terms of what became the South Africa Act, "22,784 Native and Coloured persons out of a total of 152,221 electors" were entitled to vote in Cape elections. Natal had a theoretically non-racial franchise, but in practice few non-white electors ever qualified. It was estimated, in 1908, that "200 non-Europeans out of a total of 22,786 electors had secured franchise rights". The South Africa Act 1909 provided for single member electoral divisions, with members of the House of Assembly being elected using the relative majority (also known as first past the post) electoral system. The act also provided for a delimitation commission to define the boundaries for each electoral division.

Contesting parties

South African National Party

The first Union Prime Minister (and former Transvaal Prime Minister), General Botha, assembled an electoral alliance before the first Union election. This grouping was composed of the governing parties of three of the colonies being united and some individual politicians from Natal (which did not have a pre-Union party system). The colonial parties involved were: * the South African Party of the

Cape Colony The Cape Colony (), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope. It existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three ...

(itself largely based on the Afrikaner Bond) * Het Volk from the Transvaal * Orangia Unie from the

Orange River Colony The Orange River Colony was the British colony created after Britain first occupied (1900) and then annexed (1902) the independent Orange Free State in the Second Boer War. The colony ceased to exist in 1910, when it was absorbed into the Unio ...

(which was restored to its pre-1902 name of

as a province of the Union).''South Africa 1982'', p. 165

Unionist Party

The 'Unionist Party of South Africa was formed, in May 1910, under the leadership of Leander Starr Jameson (a former Prime Minister of Cape Colony), by the merger of the three colonial opposition parties joined by some individual politicians from Natal. The parties merged into the Unionist Party were the: * Unionist Party of Cape Colony (formerly known as the Cape Progressive Party) * Constitutional Party of the Orange River Colony * Progressive Party of Transvaal The party was a pro-British conservative party. It favoured the maintenance of a pro-British political culture in South Africa similar to that present in the other 'white dominions'.

Labour Party

The South African Labour Party, formed in March 1910 following discussions between trade unions, the Transvaal Independent Labour Party and the Natal Labour Party, was a professedly socialist party representing the interests of the white working class. The party leader was Colonel F. H. P. Creswell.

Results

Two Independent Unionists were elected unopposed.Ian van der Waag (2012)
All splendid, but horrible: The Politics of South Africa's Second "Little Bit" and the War on the Western Front, 1915-1918
, ''Scientia Militaria'', volume 40, number 3, pp71–108

References

*''South Africa 1982 Official Yearbook of the Republic of South Africa'', published by Chris van Rensburg Publications *''The South African Constitution'', by H.J. May (3rd edition 1955, Juta & Co) {{South African elections General elections in South Africa

General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...

Election and referendum articles with incomplete results