Witbank (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 Transvaal Colony, and its predecessor the South African Republic, the vote was restricted to white men, and as such, elections in the Transvaal 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]

Like most of the rural Transvaal, Witbank was a conservative seat and had a largely Afrikaans-speaking electorate. It was generally a safe seat for the National Party, with two major exceptions: the 1934-48 period, when the United Party was dominant throughout the province, and after 1987, when the Conservative Party took advantage of rural white discontent with P. W. Botha's policy of limited reform to take over a number of rural seats, including Witbank.

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