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National Party (South Africa)

National Party of South Africa
Nasionale Party van Suid-Afrika
Leader First: J. B. M. Hertzog
Last: F. W. de Klerk
Founded 2 July 1915 (1915-07-02)
Dissolved 1997
Merged into United Party (between 1934 and 1939)
Succeeded by New National Party (1997–2005)
Headquarters Cape Town, Cape Province, South Africa
Ideology Racial segregation (until 1989)
White nationalism
National conservatism
Social conservatism
Republicanism
Political position Far-right
Party flag
ZANPFlag.svg
NP party flag from 1936 to 1993
NP South africa flag.gif
NP party flag from 1993 to 1997

The National Party (Afrikaans: Nasionale Party) was a political party in South Africa founded in 1915 and first became the governing party of the country in 1924. It was in opposition during the World War II years but returned to power and was again in government from 4 June 1948 until 9 May 1994. At this time, it began implementing its policy of racial segregation, known as 'apartheid'. Members of the National Party were sometimes known as Nationalists or Nats. The policies of the party included apartheid, the establishment of a republic, and the promotion of Afrikaner culture.

During the 1980s, large fractions of the party's support base left for the Conservative Party, unhappy about the party's gradual dismantling of the Apartheid system. After 1990, the NP opened up its membership to all race groups and rebranded itself as a non-racial, conservative political force. It participated in the Government of National Unity between 1994 and 1996.

In an attempt to better distance itself from its past, the party was renamed the New National Party in 1997. The attempt was largely unsuccessful and the new party was disbanded in 2005.

The National Party was founded in Bloemfontein in 1915 by Afrikaner nationalists soon after the establishment of the Union of South Africa. Its founding was rooted in disagreements among South African Party politicians, particularly Prime Minister Louis Botha and his first Minister of Justice, J.B.M. Hertzog. After Hertzog began speaking out publicly against the Botha government's "one-stream" policy in 1912, Botha removed him from the cabinet. Hertzog and his followers in the Orange Free State province subsequently moved to establish the National Party to oppose the government by advocating a "two-stream" policy of equal rights for the English and Afrikaner communities. Afrikaner nationalists in the Transvaal and Cape provinces soon followed suit, so that three distinct provincial NP organisations were in existence in time for the 1915 general elections.


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