United Party (South Africa)
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United Party
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|---|---|
| Leader |
J.B.M. Hertzog J.C. Smuts J.G.N. Strauss De Villiers Graaff |
| Founded | 1934 |
| Dissolved | 1977 |
| Preceded by |
National Party South African Party |
| Merged into | New Republic Party |
| Ideology |
Conservatism Liberalism (minority faction) Pro-Commonwealth Coloured people's rights |
The United Party was a political party in South Africa. It was the country's ruling political party between 1934 and 1948.
The United Party was formed by a merger of most of Prime Minister Barry Hertzog's National Party with the rival South African Party of Jan Smuts, plus the remnants of the Unionist Party. Its full name was the United South African National Party, but it was generally called the "United Party". The party drew support from several different parts of South African society, including English-speakers, Afrikaners and Coloureds.
Hertzog led the party until 1939. In that year, Hertzog refused to commit South Africa to Britain's war effort against Nazi Germany. Many Afrikaners who had fought in the Second Boer War were still alive, and the atrocities committed by the British during that conflict were fresh in their memory. Hertzog felt that siding with the former enemy would be unacceptable to Afrikaners. Furthermore, he could see little benefit for South Africa in taking part in a war that he saw as an essentially European affair.
The majority of the United Party caucus were of a different mind, however, and Hertzog resigned. Jan Smuts succeeded him and led the party and the country throughout World War II and the immediate post-war years.
Smuts and the United Party lost the 1948 election to the National Party. It never held power again. J. G. N. Strauss succeeded Smuts in 1950, and was in turn replaced by Sir de Villiers Graaff in 1956 until 1977. Attrition characterized his leadership years, as the party slowly declined because of electoral gerrymandering, changes to South Africa's voting laws, including the removal of the 'Coloureds' – South Africans of mixed ancestry, who had been staunch United Party supporters – from the electoral rolls, and defections to other parties such as the Progressive Party, which was formed in 1959 by liberal former UP members that sought a stronger opposition to apartheid. Despite this, the party remained relatively stable until the 1970s.
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