Kroonstad (House of Assembly of South Africa constituency)

When the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910, the electoral qualifications in use in each pre-existing colony were kept in place. In the Orange River Colony, and its predecessor the Orange Free State, the vote was restricted to white men, and as such, elections in the Orange Free State Province were held on a whites-only franchise from the beginning. The franchise was also restricted by property and education qualifications until the 1933 general election, following the passage of the Women's Enfranchisement Act, 1930 and the Franchise Laws Amendment Act, 1931. From then on, the franchise was given to all white citizens aged 21 or over. Non-whites remained disenfranchised until the end of apartheid and the introduction of universal suffrage in 1994.^[1]

Kroonstad, like most of the Orange Free State, was a highly conservative seat throughout its existence and had a largely Afrikaans-speaking electorate. It was an early stronghold for the National Party, whose founding leader J. B. M. Hertzog enjoyed widespread popularity with the Free State's Afrikaner population. Its Nationalist MP, Pieter Johannes Terreblanche, left parliament in January 1934, as Hertzog was in the process of merging his party with Jan Smuts' South African Party to form the new United Party. In the resulting by-election, the coalition parties agreed to nominate the SAP's George James Fullard, who was duly elected with only independent opposition. Fullard would represent three separate parties over a fairly short parliamentary career: he joined the UP on its formation shortly after he was elected, held the seat in 1938, then joined Nicolaas Havenga's Afrikaner Party in 1940. He contested the seat under that label in 1943, but like most Afrikaner Party candidates, placed a distant third, and the seat was taken by Andries Steyn for the Herenigde Nasionale Party, which swept the Free State in that election.

Kroonstad continued to be a Nationalist safe seat throughout the remainder of its existence, electing two relatively prominent MPs in its later years. Alwyn Schlebusch, first elected in 1962, left the seat in 1981 in order to take up the position of Vice State President, which only existed for three years and was only ever held by him. His replacement, Wynand Breytenbach, served as a deputy minister under P. W. Botha and F. W. de Klerk, and defended the seat from strong Conservative Party challenges in 1987 and 1989. He was elected to the non-racial National Assembly for the NP in 1994, but resigned shortly afterwards.