Ceres (House of Assembly of South Africa constituency)

Ceres was a constituency in the Cape Province of South Africa, which existed from 1910 to 1994. It covered a large rural area centred on the town of Ceres. 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]

As with most of the Karoo, the electorate of Ceres was largely Afrikaans-speaking, and the seat was a stronghold of the National Party and its predecessors. With the exception of the 1910 and 1915 elections, in which it was held by the South African Party, the NP won Ceres every time it was contested. Its first MP, James Tennant Molteno, had been a leading anti-imperialist politician in the Cape Colony, and served as the inaugural Speaker of the House of Assembly before retiring to become South Africa’s High Commissioner in London. For some time after Molteno’s departure, Ceres maintained a strong presence from both the SAP and the Nationalists, with most elections being closely fought. The exception was 1933, in which the two parties were in coalition and incumbent Nationalist MP J. W. J. W. Roux faced only an independent opponent. After 1948, the seat became considerably safer for the NP, who held it unopposed at several elections in the 1960s and 70s and faced only Conservative Party opponents in the seat’s last few elections.

^{[2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]}