Democratic Party (South Africa)
The Democratic Party ( Afrikaans Demokratiese Party , dt. About: "Democratic Party", short DP) was a liberal party in South Africa in the phase of the transition from apartheid to a system without racial barriers. It was founded in 1989 and existed until 2000 when it was absorbed into the Democratic Alliance .
history
During apartheid only “white” South Africans had the right to vote in the decisive chamber of parliament. Parties represented there had only white members. On the left wing there was the Progressive Federal Party (PFP), weakened by an election defeat in 1987 , its left-wing split-off National Democratic Movement (NDM) and the Independent Party (IP). They joined forces on April 8, 1989 to form the Democratic Party. The goals were the non-violent abolition of apartheid and universal suffrage . The first chairman was the former PFP chairman Zach de Beer . In the parliamentary elections in South Africa in 1994 , in which universal suffrage was in effect for the first time, the DP received just 1.7 percent of the vote and seven of the 400 seats. Zach de Beer was replaced by Tony Leon , under whom the party gained 9.6 percent of the vote and 38 seats in the 1999 election . On 24 June 2000, the DP with the closed Federal Alliance and the New National Party (NNP, New National Party ), the successor party to the former leading National Party ( National Party together). The party adopted the name Democratic Alliance (DA). The union with the NNP did not last long. In 2001 she went into business again. The DA has been the official opposition party since the parliamentary elections in 2004 , as it had the second most seats after the African National Congress .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b website of the DA on the history of the party (English), accessed on December 2, 2015