South African general election, 1989

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6 September 1989

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All 166 elected seats in the House of Assembly
All 80 elected seats in the House of Representatives
All 40 elected seats in the House of Delegates

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	F. W. de Klerk	Andries Treurnicht	Zach de Beer (pictured), Denis Worrall and Wynand Malan
Party	National Party	Conservative	Democratic Party
Last election	123	22	19
Seats won	94	39	33
Seat change	29	17	14

House of Assembly after the 1989 election

Acting State President before election

F. W. de Klerk
National Party

State President

F. W. de Klerk
National Party

The 1989 South African general election, held on 6 September of that year, was South Africa's last national race-based parliamentary election. The election was called early (no election was required until 1992) to gauge support for the recently elected head of the National Party, F. W. de Klerk (who was in the process of replacing P. W. Botha as the country's president) and his program of reform, which was to include further retreat from the policy of apartheid.

Although it won an absolute majority, the National Party suffered an electoral setback, winning only 48% of the popular vote and 103 of the seats in the House of Assembly.

The official opposition Conservative Party (CP), who opposed any form of powersharing with other race groups, remained the official opposition with 41 seats and gained 31% of the votes.

Before the elections the liberal Progressive Federal Party (PFP) had dissolved itself and regrouped as the Democratic Party (DP), which won 34 seats.

The White Chamber of Parliament had 178 members, 166 of whom were directly elected (including a seat from Walvis Bay, which was added in 1981) with 8 members indirectly elected by the directly elected members on the basis of proportional representation and 4 nominated by the State President (one from each province).

The results of the election were interpreted by the government (based on support for the NP and the DP together) as a mandate from the white electorate to forsake the apartheid system and seek a compromise with the African National Congress and its leader Nelson Mandela.

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