African Update - Main Update on South Africa
A Unequal Continent
Louis Botha, First Prime Minister of South Africa
Ever since the beginning of Human civilization, the continent of Africa has always been plagued with the curse of lagging behind the other continents in civilization, culture, and empire building. Although it was theorized to be one of the, if not the first place of Homo Sapiens and there ilk, it failed to get any real grasp of power over the rest of the world. While it is true that the Ancient Kingdoms of Nubia and Egypt, both in Africa were among the first kingdoms on earth and one of the most influential, after there downfall any real speckle of major influence besides the few tribal kingdoms and chiefdom's that dotted the land was mostly gone. The few real empires to form on the continent up until the dawn of European Colonialism were either from outside powers based in different continents like in the case of the Arab Caliphates, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Persians, ext.. The rest were African based and mostly based in the African North and East where Arab influence along with the occasional European influence was able to form African Empires, though still lagging behind there Middle Eastern, Asian, and European counterparts. Some of these like the Moroccan Empires were able to last in a series of up to 1000 years where different Moroccan kingdoms and empires formed to at times dominant the Western Sahara.
Others like the Egyptians and Malian's came and went and the short lived African based kingdoms of the Malian Empire and the Ayyubid Dynasty were able to reclaim the thrones of Africa and push out the foreigners for a time. The Malian's themselves at one time were some of the richest in the world and were the envy and European and Arab/Persian merchants who wanted there gold and exotic African goods. By the late 1300s the creation of these new Empires began to pop up more and more on the continent in the historical record and new kingdoms in the Congo, East Africa, the Sudan, Zimbabwe, and South Africa flourished and developed to rival there counterparts in places like Feudal Europe and the Middle East where the Black Death, which devastated places in both areas, had taken its toll. Africa was for the first time since the spawn of the Egyptian and Nubian culture, at the pinnacle of world politics. However for varying reasons and in many mysterious ways, the ways of African dominance was put out as fast as it was started.
The Malian Empire began to decline with the recovery of Europe and the Middle East and in 1670 collapsed into dozens of petty kingdoms. Egyptian independence meanwhile was put out finally by the rising Ottoman Turks who took over the Mameluke Sultanate based in Cairo and by 1600 controlled almost all of the North African coastline. The rest of the continent soon followed in said decline and once important places like the Kongo Kingdom and Ethiopia were reduced to minor footnotes in world politics and soon themselves ravaged by internal conflict and war with other nations. The real blow to any African influence was with the start of European Colonialism. Europe by the 1500s had made a spectacular and complete recovery from the affects from the Black death and new powers in the English, the French, the Spanish, and the Portuguese in the West were emerging as the leaders of Europe. Each of these aimed to be the most powerful empire of them all and looked for new ways to gain wealth. One big way was colonialism and land conquest. As Europe was crowded and the amount of sparse land limited and taken by rivals, they looked to the seas. Some looked to the West in the Americas while others looked South to Africa which was on a decline.
The European empires sent out explorers and military officials to examine this still vastly unknown continent. Upon there return they told of a continent full of treasures and exotic goods to be traded. The relationship at first between Europe and Africa was mostly on economic terms as each political entity traded European items for African goods including Gold and exotic African goods including Ivory, Animal skins, and African specific food items including Fruits. They set up new trading posts for these exchanges to occur and new trading areas between the two continents dotted the coastline of Africa. However this wasn't enough. As it was shown in America conquest was preferable to trading with the local peoples as they didn't have to give up much in trading when they held the others at gunpoint. They thus followed this tradition of conquest into Africa taking large swaths of land and easily defeated the Tribal kings and small Petty Kingdoms who did not have Guns and were massacred if they led a resistance. At first the main colonizers were Spain and Portugal as they sent out the first explorers to the continent.
However the riches of Africa soon got word and Northern European Empires like the British, French, Dutch, and Later French got to colonizing. Eventually almost all of Africa had been taking and the few remaining areas were either areas of extreme climate conditions (Deserts and Deep Rain forests) or the few kingdoms who refused to give up including, most prominently the state of Ethiopia who thought off attempts by the Italians to colonize. In the Berlin Conference effectively established European dominance other Africa and divided the continent between mostly France and the British with some areas like Tanzania for Germany and Angola for Portugal. Even smaller country's like Belgium got in on the action and took large swaths of territory in the Congo under the repressive regime of King Leopold II who also killed millions of Congolese in his own African fiefdom. The rest of the world however batted a eye and the prevailing theory was that native Africans were barbarians and Europeans helped civilize them. The end result may of been partially true as European culture and technology seeped into native African life and thus unintentionally advanced Africa into the 20th century. In the new Colonial Africa life was much different them pre-colonial times.
The native Black African majority had been removed from power entirely and were forced into slave like conditions and poverty working for the now white domination governments of these new colony's. They were revoked off any political duty's including voting and were thus at the whims of the White minority in almost all new colony's who were virtually all crown controlled in the early days and sometimes directly appointed by the mainland to rule over the colony's. The few political party's that existed both preserved the African System by any ways necessary including sometimes brutally putting down riots by the disenfranchised majority and locking up political dissidents.
The rule of fear lead to the limitation of riots throughout many colony's as most were told to enjoy new western standards of living and technology in exchange for not rioting or having political say. Centralized power over there African colony's was the official policy for most European empires ruling colony's in the Empire and it wasn't until the early 1900s in which these same empire's agreed to give there colony's more autonomy. In was in this time in which the first slivers of autonomy crept into African politics and the first sense of free choice in African elections (for the white voters) was established. The sense of change came in 1908 when King Leopold II was forced away from his personal fied of the Congo when the Belgian Parliament forced the creation of the Belgian Congo as an autonomous colonial entity and thus allowing for the creation of a wider and more free Belgian Congolese Government.
This occurred as the first news of King Leopold's atrocious behavior in the Congo broke. In the parliament the issue of the status of the Congo was put to a vote. With the backing of the Socialists and the Radical's the parliament ruled in favor of the creation of the establishment of the Belgian Congo and on November 15th, 1908 the Belgian Congo began a officially part of the Belgian Kingdom and thus the old fiefdom of the Belgian Free state was swept away. In the new government the country was at first divided into 4 provinces and later into 6. These were divided into chiefdom's. The ruler of the territory like before was the Governor-General and the government was lead by colonial administrators. Both the White Belgian Congolese and native one could not vote these officials in and were appointed from Belgium itself. However in a big change the new colony allowed for a equal court system of both European and indigenous ones.
Both held limited power and resided over the administrators. Overall in the country a separate but equal segregation was enforced between the races which was a big improvement from slavery before. Not soon after the colony of South Africa fell in reforms. In 1910 following the 1909 Union act, the Union of South Africa was formed as a united South African british colony under a independent colonial government under British supervision. Thus in 1910 the first South African General election was held. The two main party's in the newly formed parliament proved to be both the newly founded South African Party and the Unionist Party with the SAP gaining 67 seats too the Unionist 39 seats our of 121 total. The new majority party, the SAP, were the party of national conservationism, white nationalism, and were supporters of the Afrikaner Dutch. The new minority party on the other hand, the Unionist Party, were formed around the principles of Liberals, Protectionism and Anti-Immigration, and supporter of the reform system known as the Commonwealth. They also supported a British oriented culture rather then a Dutch one advocated by the SAP. The SAP was lead by Louis Botha and the Unionist were lead by Leander Starr Jameson.
Botha proved to be a moderate figure establishing reforms while distancing himself from the extremes of the SAP and supported a reconciliation between the Dutch and English populations. This resulted in the formation of the far right National Party in 1915. The Unionist's ran Thomas Smartt. Aided by the fracturing of the SAP and the global progressive trend of politics spearheaded by the win of Teddy Roosevelt in America resulted in a much closer then usual election lead by Smartt who advocated reformism, support for further South African independence, and with a moderate position of Dutch-British relations was able to defeat Botha and become Prime Minister.
In the end Smartt was able to pull it out with a small victory gaining 3 more seats then the SAP. They still held a hung parliament however and the National Party held as the king maker. Lead by popular general J.B.M. Hertzog, they were able to get more then 25% of the vote and 23 seats in just one election and he declared himself the real winner of the election saying to a newspaper "I turned a fringe group into a viable political party, i think i'm the real winner in the election". The National Party being a break off of the SAP was naturally more inclined to back the SAP compared to the Unionist. Hertzog decided to back Botha in exchange for a coalition government which both party's on a equal level.
Botha desperate agreed to such offer and the Unionist where left in the dark even if they held a plurality of seats in the Parliament. Botha was swept back into the Prime Minister role with a coalition of the SAP and NP of a combined 75 seats to the Unionist's 55. In his second term as Prime Minister, Louis Botha stood at a knifes edge. He knew he had to appease the National Party in order to keep there alliance and majority intact and so abandoned any attempt to establish cultural harmony between the British and Dutch. Instead he pushed the opposite pushing native Dutch culture over British ones and appointing a mostly dutch cabinet of officials. The NP on there part voted as a block on Botha's more moderate legislation and pushed mainly in his second term domestically for more reforms in the area of farming for poor white farmers in the rural regions.
These reforms where also backed by the Unionist's. Come 1920 another general election was called to order. In international news the 1919-1921 Post War Recession hit South Africa like it did the rest of the world. The polling of the party dropped dramatically as there economic policy's was seen as against that of the poor. However with Louis Botha dropping dead in 1919, his successor Jan Smuts took most of the blame. The Unionist's and the National Party sensed a new opportunity here with the the decline of the SAP. The Nationals again put up Hertzog and he ran a populist campaign advocating economic reforms for working class White Africans of both Dutch and British descent, though campaigned to protect Dutch culture, and attacked his coalition party member of the SAP on there ineptitude.
Meanwhile on there left the Unionist ran many of the same themes and ran Thomas Smartt once again. He ran a coalition campaign for the small Labour Party, formed in 1910 and held only 4 seats, to unite the Left fully. Labour realizing they probably could not amount to much being a party of mostly Urban Whites agreed to said coalition and Unionist Labour was thus born. They attack the South African Party for its corruption under Botha and sought to fight for the working man. They also attack Hertzog for his extremism and anti-british sentiments gaining most of the colonial british population behind there banner.
EDIT: Should be 14 seats
The result showed a decimation of the SAP. They lost dozens of seat and held less then 15 seats at only 14 seats still holding there party afloat. Meanwhile the big winners on election night where the Unionist-Labour Party and the National Party each gaining massively with the ULP gaining 5 seats to hold there plurality at 60 seats while the National Party gained a massive 32 seats too become a minority party at 54 seats crushing there forming SAP masters.
They won big in the Dutch dominated North and Western Farming regions and were pushed to over 90,000 votes. Interestingly however the SAP still held the popular vote at 34.48% over the National's 34.01% due to the party's extreme popular vote advantage. The Election once again produced a hung parliament with no candidates gaining a majority. The National Party know far ahead of the SAP in seats would be the de-facto leader of any coalition with the SAP and J.B.M. Hertzog called upon them to back him. After some struggles by the moderate factions within the party with many wanting to end the extremism of the NP, Jan Smuts coalitioned with the Nationals forming the first National Lead coalition government. Unionist-Labour was once again left in the cold having failed to gain a majority of seats which no viable partners in the parliament.
Under his first term he would lead the country into the 1920s. He was able to re-establish the country from economic instability after the recession with mass reforms with the White populous creating new relief programs for the poor whites affected by the recession including with the Miners in the North. He ended any unheavable brought on by the depression and successfully ended much of the Socialist threat in the country with his economic populist agenda. His successful handling of the Rand Rebellion increased his popularity by negotiating for higher wages for the miners. He was able to meanwhile successfully negotiate with the British for increased autonomy laying the groundwork for the 1926 Commonwealth Treaty while at home opted for a Afrikaner preservationist agenda appointing much to his cabinet and going out of his way to preserve Dutch influence in South Africa. At the same time he didn't try to upset the British White population by extending relief programs to them too and opting to maintain there influence too in a Joint Influence White African nation. Come the 1925 election, Hertzog was immensely popular.
He ran against Jan Smuts of the SAP and the newly elected F.H.P. Creswell of the Unionist Labour Party. He hailed from the party's left and campaigned on the struggles of the White proletariat. The campaign was brief and uneventful and come election time the winner of uncontroversial and clear.
Hertzog won in a easy victory. Gaining 13 seats now he was just 1 short of a majority and only needed one SAP seat to due it. Unionist Labour took a dive meanwhile losing 18 seats and reduced to 42 in total due to Hertzog winning in many Labour friendly White Working class areas with his economic policy being favorable to them.
Finally the SAP gained 10 seats but where still in a distant third. Hertzog, this time, had a much easier time forming a majority government with the SAP easily falling in line behind him. More and morei t looked like the SAP was but a arm of the National Party, not the other way around. Coming into his second term now with a coalition of 91 seats, he would find himself flying through his agenda in the Parliament. First in 1926 he easily ratified the Commonwealth act allowing for South Africa to be a commonwealth country. It easily passed the parliament with a Joint consensus between the three party's. Only the most extreme British loyalists disagreed. Being one of the first country's to ratify the treaty Hertzog was able to make South Africa one of the top tier colony's on a mostly equal footing with the United Kingdoms.
This was again very popular, especially among the Afrikaners who supported much independence from Britain after the British had colonized the country a had a century prior. On the domestic front he passed many reforms for his white constituency including the Wages Act of 1926 which covered for a federal minimum wage for most workers excluded from one prior.. He also signed into law the Pensions Act of 1926 which provided retirement benefits for white workers with a reduced amount for coloured ones. Perhaps his most important achievement of his second term was the enfranchisement of white women in 1928 allowing them to vote in elections in a example off of the many western country's which already have done so, the United States being one.
Again he proved to be immensely popular and was well liked by just about everyone. Nearing 65 by the 1930 Election, there was some questioning on whether he would run again. He dispelled those rumors in early 1930 when he did in fact announce he would run again. Running on mass reforms and a growing economy, he was well set for the 1930 election. The SAP ran Smuts once again who refused to let go of the minority leadership position. Meanwhile the Unionist Labour Party nominated Frederic Creswell once more
He had finally done it. He had secured 2 more then a majority and formed the first National Majority government in the new Union's history. He could now govern from his party alone and didn't need the SAP for governing. The Unionist Labour Party continued to lose and stood at 34 seats now losing 8 and growing farther apart from National in terms of seats. The SAP still gained seats and stood a 3 seats but National gaining a majority was a major blow to them forcing them out of government and into extreme minority status.
Hertzog would now go into his third term with a official majority. He now had much power to his disposal to fully implant the National Agenda on South Africa. However unknowing to him, him and his administration would soon see that the good times have come to a close...
Louis Botha, First Prime Minister of South Africa
Ever since the beginning of Human civilization, the continent of Africa has always been plagued with the curse of lagging behind the other continents in civilization, culture, and empire building. Although it was theorized to be one of the, if not the first place of Homo Sapiens and there ilk, it failed to get any real grasp of power over the rest of the world. While it is true that the Ancient Kingdoms of Nubia and Egypt, both in Africa were among the first kingdoms on earth and one of the most influential, after there downfall any real speckle of major influence besides the few tribal kingdoms and chiefdom's that dotted the land was mostly gone. The few real empires to form on the continent up until the dawn of European Colonialism were either from outside powers based in different continents like in the case of the Arab Caliphates, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Persians, ext.. The rest were African based and mostly based in the African North and East where Arab influence along with the occasional European influence was able to form African Empires, though still lagging behind there Middle Eastern, Asian, and European counterparts. Some of these like the Moroccan Empires were able to last in a series of up to 1000 years where different Moroccan kingdoms and empires formed to at times dominant the Western Sahara.
Others like the Egyptians and Malian's came and went and the short lived African based kingdoms of the Malian Empire and the Ayyubid Dynasty were able to reclaim the thrones of Africa and push out the foreigners for a time. The Malian's themselves at one time were some of the richest in the world and were the envy and European and Arab/Persian merchants who wanted there gold and exotic African goods. By the late 1300s the creation of these new Empires began to pop up more and more on the continent in the historical record and new kingdoms in the Congo, East Africa, the Sudan, Zimbabwe, and South Africa flourished and developed to rival there counterparts in places like Feudal Europe and the Middle East where the Black Death, which devastated places in both areas, had taken its toll. Africa was for the first time since the spawn of the Egyptian and Nubian culture, at the pinnacle of world politics. However for varying reasons and in many mysterious ways, the ways of African dominance was put out as fast as it was started.
The Malian Empire began to decline with the recovery of Europe and the Middle East and in 1670 collapsed into dozens of petty kingdoms. Egyptian independence meanwhile was put out finally by the rising Ottoman Turks who took over the Mameluke Sultanate based in Cairo and by 1600 controlled almost all of the North African coastline. The rest of the continent soon followed in said decline and once important places like the Kongo Kingdom and Ethiopia were reduced to minor footnotes in world politics and soon themselves ravaged by internal conflict and war with other nations. The real blow to any African influence was with the start of European Colonialism. Europe by the 1500s had made a spectacular and complete recovery from the affects from the Black death and new powers in the English, the French, the Spanish, and the Portuguese in the West were emerging as the leaders of Europe. Each of these aimed to be the most powerful empire of them all and looked for new ways to gain wealth. One big way was colonialism and land conquest. As Europe was crowded and the amount of sparse land limited and taken by rivals, they looked to the seas. Some looked to the West in the Americas while others looked South to Africa which was on a decline.
The European empires sent out explorers and military officials to examine this still vastly unknown continent. Upon there return they told of a continent full of treasures and exotic goods to be traded. The relationship at first between Europe and Africa was mostly on economic terms as each political entity traded European items for African goods including Gold and exotic African goods including Ivory, Animal skins, and African specific food items including Fruits. They set up new trading posts for these exchanges to occur and new trading areas between the two continents dotted the coastline of Africa. However this wasn't enough. As it was shown in America conquest was preferable to trading with the local peoples as they didn't have to give up much in trading when they held the others at gunpoint. They thus followed this tradition of conquest into Africa taking large swaths of land and easily defeated the Tribal kings and small Petty Kingdoms who did not have Guns and were massacred if they led a resistance. At first the main colonizers were Spain and Portugal as they sent out the first explorers to the continent.
However the riches of Africa soon got word and Northern European Empires like the British, French, Dutch, and Later French got to colonizing. Eventually almost all of Africa had been taking and the few remaining areas were either areas of extreme climate conditions (Deserts and Deep Rain forests) or the few kingdoms who refused to give up including, most prominently the state of Ethiopia who thought off attempts by the Italians to colonize. In the Berlin Conference effectively established European dominance other Africa and divided the continent between mostly France and the British with some areas like Tanzania for Germany and Angola for Portugal. Even smaller country's like Belgium got in on the action and took large swaths of territory in the Congo under the repressive regime of King Leopold II who also killed millions of Congolese in his own African fiefdom. The rest of the world however batted a eye and the prevailing theory was that native Africans were barbarians and Europeans helped civilize them. The end result may of been partially true as European culture and technology seeped into native African life and thus unintentionally advanced Africa into the 20th century. In the new Colonial Africa life was much different them pre-colonial times.
The native Black African majority had been removed from power entirely and were forced into slave like conditions and poverty working for the now white domination governments of these new colony's. They were revoked off any political duty's including voting and were thus at the whims of the White minority in almost all new colony's who were virtually all crown controlled in the early days and sometimes directly appointed by the mainland to rule over the colony's. The few political party's that existed both preserved the African System by any ways necessary including sometimes brutally putting down riots by the disenfranchised majority and locking up political dissidents.
The rule of fear lead to the limitation of riots throughout many colony's as most were told to enjoy new western standards of living and technology in exchange for not rioting or having political say. Centralized power over there African colony's was the official policy for most European empires ruling colony's in the Empire and it wasn't until the early 1900s in which these same empire's agreed to give there colony's more autonomy. In was in this time in which the first slivers of autonomy crept into African politics and the first sense of free choice in African elections (for the white voters) was established. The sense of change came in 1908 when King Leopold II was forced away from his personal fied of the Congo when the Belgian Parliament forced the creation of the Belgian Congo as an autonomous colonial entity and thus allowing for the creation of a wider and more free Belgian Congolese Government.
This occurred as the first news of King Leopold's atrocious behavior in the Congo broke. In the parliament the issue of the status of the Congo was put to a vote. With the backing of the Socialists and the Radical's the parliament ruled in favor of the creation of the establishment of the Belgian Congo and on November 15th, 1908 the Belgian Congo began a officially part of the Belgian Kingdom and thus the old fiefdom of the Belgian Free state was swept away. In the new government the country was at first divided into 4 provinces and later into 6. These were divided into chiefdom's. The ruler of the territory like before was the Governor-General and the government was lead by colonial administrators. Both the White Belgian Congolese and native one could not vote these officials in and were appointed from Belgium itself. However in a big change the new colony allowed for a equal court system of both European and indigenous ones.
Both held limited power and resided over the administrators. Overall in the country a separate but equal segregation was enforced between the races which was a big improvement from slavery before. Not soon after the colony of South Africa fell in reforms. In 1910 following the 1909 Union act, the Union of South Africa was formed as a united South African british colony under a independent colonial government under British supervision. Thus in 1910 the first South African General election was held. The two main party's in the newly formed parliament proved to be both the newly founded South African Party and the Unionist Party with the SAP gaining 67 seats too the Unionist 39 seats our of 121 total. The new majority party, the SAP, were the party of national conservationism, white nationalism, and were supporters of the Afrikaner Dutch. The new minority party on the other hand, the Unionist Party, were formed around the principles of Liberals, Protectionism and Anti-Immigration, and supporter of the reform system known as the Commonwealth. They also supported a British oriented culture rather then a Dutch one advocated by the SAP. The SAP was lead by Louis Botha and the Unionist were lead by Leander Starr Jameson.
Botha proved to be a moderate figure establishing reforms while distancing himself from the extremes of the SAP and supported a reconciliation between the Dutch and English populations. This resulted in the formation of the far right National Party in 1915. The Unionist's ran Thomas Smartt. Aided by the fracturing of the SAP and the global progressive trend of politics spearheaded by the win of Teddy Roosevelt in America resulted in a much closer then usual election lead by Smartt who advocated reformism, support for further South African independence, and with a moderate position of Dutch-British relations was able to defeat Botha and become Prime Minister.
In the end Smartt was able to pull it out with a small victory gaining 3 more seats then the SAP. They still held a hung parliament however and the National Party held as the king maker. Lead by popular general J.B.M. Hertzog, they were able to get more then 25% of the vote and 23 seats in just one election and he declared himself the real winner of the election saying to a newspaper "I turned a fringe group into a viable political party, i think i'm the real winner in the election". The National Party being a break off of the SAP was naturally more inclined to back the SAP compared to the Unionist. Hertzog decided to back Botha in exchange for a coalition government which both party's on a equal level.
Botha desperate agreed to such offer and the Unionist where left in the dark even if they held a plurality of seats in the Parliament. Botha was swept back into the Prime Minister role with a coalition of the SAP and NP of a combined 75 seats to the Unionist's 55. In his second term as Prime Minister, Louis Botha stood at a knifes edge. He knew he had to appease the National Party in order to keep there alliance and majority intact and so abandoned any attempt to establish cultural harmony between the British and Dutch. Instead he pushed the opposite pushing native Dutch culture over British ones and appointing a mostly dutch cabinet of officials. The NP on there part voted as a block on Botha's more moderate legislation and pushed mainly in his second term domestically for more reforms in the area of farming for poor white farmers in the rural regions.
These reforms where also backed by the Unionist's. Come 1920 another general election was called to order. In international news the 1919-1921 Post War Recession hit South Africa like it did the rest of the world. The polling of the party dropped dramatically as there economic policy's was seen as against that of the poor. However with Louis Botha dropping dead in 1919, his successor Jan Smuts took most of the blame. The Unionist's and the National Party sensed a new opportunity here with the the decline of the SAP. The Nationals again put up Hertzog and he ran a populist campaign advocating economic reforms for working class White Africans of both Dutch and British descent, though campaigned to protect Dutch culture, and attacked his coalition party member of the SAP on there ineptitude.
Meanwhile on there left the Unionist ran many of the same themes and ran Thomas Smartt once again. He ran a coalition campaign for the small Labour Party, formed in 1910 and held only 4 seats, to unite the Left fully. Labour realizing they probably could not amount to much being a party of mostly Urban Whites agreed to said coalition and Unionist Labour was thus born. They attack the South African Party for its corruption under Botha and sought to fight for the working man. They also attack Hertzog for his extremism and anti-british sentiments gaining most of the colonial british population behind there banner.
EDIT: Should be 14 seats
The result showed a decimation of the SAP. They lost dozens of seat and held less then 15 seats at only 14 seats still holding there party afloat. Meanwhile the big winners on election night where the Unionist-Labour Party and the National Party each gaining massively with the ULP gaining 5 seats to hold there plurality at 60 seats while the National Party gained a massive 32 seats too become a minority party at 54 seats crushing there forming SAP masters.
They won big in the Dutch dominated North and Western Farming regions and were pushed to over 90,000 votes. Interestingly however the SAP still held the popular vote at 34.48% over the National's 34.01% due to the party's extreme popular vote advantage. The Election once again produced a hung parliament with no candidates gaining a majority. The National Party know far ahead of the SAP in seats would be the de-facto leader of any coalition with the SAP and J.B.M. Hertzog called upon them to back him. After some struggles by the moderate factions within the party with many wanting to end the extremism of the NP, Jan Smuts coalitioned with the Nationals forming the first National Lead coalition government. Unionist-Labour was once again left in the cold having failed to gain a majority of seats which no viable partners in the parliament.
Under his first term he would lead the country into the 1920s. He was able to re-establish the country from economic instability after the recession with mass reforms with the White populous creating new relief programs for the poor whites affected by the recession including with the Miners in the North. He ended any unheavable brought on by the depression and successfully ended much of the Socialist threat in the country with his economic populist agenda. His successful handling of the Rand Rebellion increased his popularity by negotiating for higher wages for the miners. He was able to meanwhile successfully negotiate with the British for increased autonomy laying the groundwork for the 1926 Commonwealth Treaty while at home opted for a Afrikaner preservationist agenda appointing much to his cabinet and going out of his way to preserve Dutch influence in South Africa. At the same time he didn't try to upset the British White population by extending relief programs to them too and opting to maintain there influence too in a Joint Influence White African nation. Come the 1925 election, Hertzog was immensely popular.
He ran against Jan Smuts of the SAP and the newly elected F.H.P. Creswell of the Unionist Labour Party. He hailed from the party's left and campaigned on the struggles of the White proletariat. The campaign was brief and uneventful and come election time the winner of uncontroversial and clear.
Hertzog won in a easy victory. Gaining 13 seats now he was just 1 short of a majority and only needed one SAP seat to due it. Unionist Labour took a dive meanwhile losing 18 seats and reduced to 42 in total due to Hertzog winning in many Labour friendly White Working class areas with his economic policy being favorable to them.
Finally the SAP gained 10 seats but where still in a distant third. Hertzog, this time, had a much easier time forming a majority government with the SAP easily falling in line behind him. More and morei t looked like the SAP was but a arm of the National Party, not the other way around. Coming into his second term now with a coalition of 91 seats, he would find himself flying through his agenda in the Parliament. First in 1926 he easily ratified the Commonwealth act allowing for South Africa to be a commonwealth country. It easily passed the parliament with a Joint consensus between the three party's. Only the most extreme British loyalists disagreed. Being one of the first country's to ratify the treaty Hertzog was able to make South Africa one of the top tier colony's on a mostly equal footing with the United Kingdoms.
This was again very popular, especially among the Afrikaners who supported much independence from Britain after the British had colonized the country a had a century prior. On the domestic front he passed many reforms for his white constituency including the Wages Act of 1926 which covered for a federal minimum wage for most workers excluded from one prior.. He also signed into law the Pensions Act of 1926 which provided retirement benefits for white workers with a reduced amount for coloured ones. Perhaps his most important achievement of his second term was the enfranchisement of white women in 1928 allowing them to vote in elections in a example off of the many western country's which already have done so, the United States being one.
Again he proved to be immensely popular and was well liked by just about everyone. Nearing 65 by the 1930 Election, there was some questioning on whether he would run again. He dispelled those rumors in early 1930 when he did in fact announce he would run again. Running on mass reforms and a growing economy, he was well set for the 1930 election. The SAP ran Smuts once again who refused to let go of the minority leadership position. Meanwhile the Unionist Labour Party nominated Frederic Creswell once more
He had finally done it. He had secured 2 more then a majority and formed the first National Majority government in the new Union's history. He could now govern from his party alone and didn't need the SAP for governing. The Unionist Labour Party continued to lose and stood at 34 seats now losing 8 and growing farther apart from National in terms of seats. The SAP still gained seats and stood a 3 seats but National gaining a majority was a major blow to them forcing them out of government and into extreme minority status.
Hertzog would now go into his third term with a official majority. He now had much power to his disposal to fully implant the National Agenda on South Africa. However unknowing to him, him and his administration would soon see that the good times have come to a close...
