South African Party
남아프리카당
A party formed at Bloemfontein in November 1911, after the Union of South Africa was created, by merging Afrikaner parties from several provinces with some English-speaking elements. Led successively by Louis Botha and Jan Smuts, it governed until 1924 and stood for cooperation between English and Afrikaans speakers and close ties with the British Empire. In December 1934 it merged with Hertzog’s National Party to form the United Party.
In depth
According to the Afrikaans source, the South African Party was founded after Union at a congress in Bloemfontein on 21 November 1911 by merging the South African Party of the Cape, the Orangia Unie of the Orange Free State, Het Volk of the Transvaal and some English-speaking elements. Its forerunner was the loose “Governing Party” (1910–1911), which won 67 of 121 seats in the first election of 1910. The English source notes that Botha had called for a “South African National Party” in Pretoria in June 1910, but that the party was formally created only in November 1911.
Its first leader was Louis Botha, succeeded on his death in August 1919 by Jan Smuts. The party stood for cooperation between English and Afrikaans speakers, equal rights for the two languages, encouragement of white immigration and a ban on Indian immigration, and close ties with Britain and the Empire, and opposed a South African republic. In 1913 J. B. M. Hertzog and the hardline Boer nationalists broke away to form the National Party; SAP supporters were known as “Sappe” and Nationalists as “Natte”. In 1921 the SAP absorbed the largely English-speaking Unionist Party.
Discontent over the economic hardship of the early 1920s erupted in the general strike of 1922, which Smuts’s government ended by military intervention and negotiation. Defeated by the National–Labour coalition (the “Pact” government) in the 1924 election, the SAP went into opposition. Amid the Great Depression Hertzog formed a coalition with it in 1933, and on 5 December 1934 the two parties merged to form the United Party (United South African National Party). The same name was later used by two other parties in 1947–1948 and 1977–1980.