General election in South Africa 1987
The general election in South Africa 1987 took place on May 6, 1987 in the Republic of South Africa for the House of Assembly . This was the first election for this parliamentary chamber since the opening of the three-chamber parliament in September 1984. There was public criticism of the elections by Desmond Tutu of the South African Council of Churches and, according to the Labor Monitoring Group , there were a million workers on May 5th and 6th , Students and schoolchildren to mass demonstrations over the repression of trade unions and political organizations under the effects of the state of emergency in the country.
prehistory
At the opening of the parliamentary session on January 30, 1987, President Pieter Willem Botha announced that general elections for the white House of Representatives would take place on May 6 of the same year.
Andries Treurnicht , the party leader of the Konserwatiewe Party (KP), had tried to form an alliance with the Herstigte Nasionale Party (HNP) in conversation with its chairman Jaap Marais before the election . Subsequent rifts between the two party leaderships ultimately rendered these alliance negotiations ineffective. The AWB leader Eugène Terre'Blanche blamed Marais for the failure of such a sought-after alliance.
During the election campaign, there were massive accusations against the government of Pieter Willem Botha from among the ultra-conservative and right-wing political forces; it would be too weak in its domestic security policy and give the impression that public calm could be restored in a short time. Following this accusation, the Communist Party candidate Theunis Swanepoel , a former senior police officer ( brigadier ) and former police department head for Soweto , said that "negotiations with the enemy can only be conducted under the cannon barrel". He claimed that there were communists in the government at the time . Andries Treurnicht, the party chairman, accused President Botha's government policy of failing to establish law and order and that it was incapable of combating the "spirit of revolution ... rising from within and beyond the country". The increasing sharpness of the dispute was also reflected in the assessment of Faithful Nothing, according to which the "persistent pursuit of their [government] disastrous course of power participation [concept of a fourth parliamentary chamber] means the destruction of the right to self-determination of the people of South Africa". In April Treurn did not ask the government to withdraw Archbishop Desmond Tutu's passport because he was calling for sanctions against South Africa overseas . He also said that the National Party had rejected the supposedly only peaceful solution for South Africa, which in his opinion would lie in the separate, independent states for the various “racial groups”. He is convinced that the full draw apartheid under the "control of God" ( supervision of God ), his Bible tell him that "God is responsible for the division [ division wear] of the people. ... It is not a coincidence or a sin ”.
Electoral process
In the course of the elections to the House of Assembly (white Chamber of Deputies), 178 parliamentary seats were available, 166 were obtained through the direct vote in the constituencies.
12 members of parliament, four of them for the provinces (one per province), were appointed by the president. The parliamentary right to vote could only be exercised within the population of European descent.
Elections for the other two chambers of parliament House of Representatives ( Coloreds ) and House of Delegates (Indians) did not take place.
Results of the parliamentary elections
There were 3,053,417 registered voters for the parliamentary elections , of which 2,058,036 exercised their right to vote. The invalid votes amounted to 15,782 ballots and the valid votes to 2,042,254 votes cast.
| Political party | Chairman | Voting result | Seats | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| National Party (NP) | Pieter Willem Botha | 1,075,642 | 133 including 10 nominated members of parliament |
|
| Konserwatiewe Party (KP) | Andries Treu not | 574.502 | 23 including 1 nominated member of parliament |
|
| Progressive Federal Party (PFP) | Colin Eglin | 288,579 | 20 including 1 nominated member of parliament |
|
| New Republic Party (NRP) | Bill Sutton | 1 | ||
| Independent Movement (IM) three candidates ran for election | 1 | |||
| Total | 178 |
Follow-up developments
The election resulted in a change of direction in the political opposition to the ruling National Party (NP). The past and the liberal left in force Progressive Federal Party (PFP) arrived in accordance with their mandates to third place. In second place and thus the leading opposition in parliament, the Konserwatiewe Party (KP), an organization from the right-wing spectrum, became.
During the legislative period , the PFP lost three parliamentary seats when these elected officials left the party.
More timely elections
The death of a member of the National Progressive Party (NPP) from the House of Delegates (Indian Chamber in Parliament ) required by-elections in Lenasia ( Johannesburg ). In August 1987, voters of Indian origin voted here at the ballot box for Mohamed Shah (NPP) to succeed Abie Choonara (NP), with a turnout of 16%. 7052 voters stayed away from the ballot. In 1984, however, there were only 4,867 voters.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c SAIRR : Race Relations Survey 1987/88 . Johannesburg 1988, pp. 103-104
- ↑ SAIRR: Survey 1987/88 . P. 105
- ↑ a b SAIRR: Survey 1987/88 , 1988, pp. 720-721
- ↑ Der Spiegel: Theuns Swanepoel . Report from February 23, 1987 on www.spiegel.de
- ^ A b South African History Online: The South African general elections: 1987 . on www.sahistory.org.za (English)
- ↑ SAIRR: Survey 1987/88 , 1988, p. 761
- ↑ SAIRR: Survey 1987/88 , 1988, p. 105
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