Aliwal (House of Assembly of South Africa constituency)

Aliwal was a constituency in the Cape Province of South Africa, which existed throughout the first-past-the-post era (1910 to 1994) with the exception of the 1920 and 1921 elections. Named after the town of Aliwal North, the seat covered a large rural area along the Cape’s northeastern frontier, bordering the Orange Free State province as well as Lesotho and, after its nominal independence in 1976, the Transkei bantustan. Throughout its existence it elected one member to the House of Assembly and one to the Cape Provincial Council.

When the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910, the electoral qualifications in use in each pre-existing colony were kept in place. The Cape Colony had implemented a “colour-blind” franchise known as the Cape Qualified Franchise, which included all adult literate men owning more than £75 worth of property (controversially raised from £25 in 1892), and this initially remained in effect after the colony became the Cape Province. As of 1908, 22,784 out of 152,221 electors in the Cape Colony were “Native or Coloured”. Eligibility to serve in Parliament and the Provincial Council, however, was restricted to whites from 1910 onward.

The first challenge to the Cape Qualified Franchise came with the Women's Enfranchisement Act, 1930 and the Franchise Laws Amendment Act, 1931, which extended the vote to women and removed property qualifications for the white population only – non-white voters remained subject to the earlier restrictions. In 1936, the Representation of Natives Act removed all black voters from the common electoral roll and introduced three “Native Representative Members”, white MPs elected by the black voters of the province and meant to represent their interests in particular. A similar provision was made for Coloured voters with the Separate Representation of Voters Act, 1951, and although this law was challenged by the courts, it went into effect in time for the 1958 general election, which was thus held with all-white voter rolls for the first time in South African history. The all-white franchise would continue until the end of apartheid and the introduction of universal suffrage in 1994.^[1]

Like most rural seats, Aliwal was reliably conservative for most of its history. Throughout its first existence, the seat was held by the South African Party, which won it in 1910 when Jacobus Wilhelmus Sauer, a veteran of the pre-union Cape colonial government, was elected unopposed. Sauer died in 1913, and SAP candidate Stephanus Bekker won the seat in a by-election contested only by the independent candidate W. C. Orsmond. The SAP won again in 1915, with Constantine Alexander Schweizer representing the seat until its abolition in 1920. Following two elections consolidated with neighbouring Albert, Aliwal was recreated in 1924, and incumbent MHA C.A.A. Sephton won the seat narrowly over the National Party’s H.S. van Zyl. Sephton held the seat in 1929 and 1933, unopposed in the latter election, but in 1938 the Purified National Party captured it. Gert Hendrik Frans “Kappie” Strydom would go on to represent the seat until 1961, and all his successors in the seat were from the NP.^[2]

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