 As such, the government of South Africa was quite similar—from a constitutional standpoint—to the government of the United Kingdom.The Cape Colony had long adhered to a system of non-racial franchise, whereby qualifications for suffrage were applied equally to all males, regardless of race.During the union negotiations, the last Cape Prime Minister, John X. Merriman, and Sir Walter Stanford, representing the Transkei and other African communities, fought unsuccessfully to have this multi-racial franchise system extended to the rest of South Africa.