if he became prime minister. 104
When the votes were counted, the National party had won seventy seats,
mainly rural, and the United party had won sixty-five seats, mainly urban.
Ironically, the United party would have won the election if the rural elec-
toral divisions had not contained fewer voters than the urban divisions, as
laid down in the constitution
for which Smuts had been primarily responsi-
ble. Malan then formed a government in alliance with the Afrikaner party,
a Hertzogite
rump, which he soon absorbed.
Afrikaners,
skillfully mobi-
lized, had peacefully won political control
of a country
in which they
formed no more than 12 percent of the population.
On June 1, 1948, Malan arrived in Pretoria by train to receive a tu-
multuous welcome. "In the past," he said, "we felt like strangers in our own
country, but today South Africa belongs to us once more. For the first time
since Union, South Africa is our own. May God grant that it always
remains our own."lOS
186