THEAPARTHEIDERA
speaking Whites, who were attracted by the government's determination to
maintain control in the face of increasing black unrest and foreign crit-
icism. It won successive elections by increasing majorities. The United
party never recovered from its defeat in 1948. Once in 1959 its leaders
actually tried to outbid the Nationalists in racism by rejecting the purchase
of more land for Africans, whereupon its relatively liberal members broke
ranks and founded the Progressive party. In 1977, a shadow of its former
self, the United party dissolved. In the general election that year, the Na-
tionalists won 134 seats in the House of Assembly, whereas the major
opposition, the Progressive Federal party, won a mere 17 seats.
The National party used its control of the government to fulfill Af-
rikaner ethnic goals as well as white racial goals. It achieved a major ethnic
objective in 1961 when, after obtaining a narrow majority in a referendum
of the white electorate, the government transformed South Africa into a
republic, thereby completing the process of disengagement from Great
Britain. The government had intended to follow the precedent whereby
India remained a member of the British Commonwealth when it became a