CHAPTER
6
TheApartheidEra
1948-1978
After its initial victory in 1948, the National party consolidated
its power. In that year it created new parliamentary seats for
representatives of white voters in South West Africa (six in the
House of Assembly and four in the Senate) who were elected to
support the government. Then, step by step, it eliminated every
vestige of black participation in the central political system. In
1956, after a long political and legal struggle, it dealt the Colo-
ured votes in the Cape Province, most of whom had supported
the United party, the same blow as the Hertzog government had
dealt the African voters in 1936: it placed them on a separate
roll and gave them the right to elect Whites to represent them in
Parliament. Fourteen years later, it abolished the parliamentary
seats of the white representatives of both African and Coloured
voters. 1
For three decades, the National party had the support of the
overwhelming majority of the Afrikaner people. In the election
of 1966, it also began to win substantial support from English-
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