The 1920 South African general election was held for the 134 seats in the House of Assembly

House of Assembly of South Africa

The House of Assembly was the lower house of the Parliament of South Africa from 1910 to 1984, and latterly the white representative house of the Tricameral Parliament from 1984 to 1994, when it was replaced by the current National Assembly...

 of the Union

Union of South Africa

The Union of South Africa is the historic predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into being on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the previously separate colonies of the Cape, Natal, Transvaal and the Orange Free State...

 of South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

, on 20 March 1920. This was for the third Union Parliament.

The National Party (NP) won the largest number of seats, but not a majority. The South African Party (SAP) minority government continued in office, with Unionist Party support in Parliament. This was the third successive term of SAP government, but only the second period with General Jan Smuts as Prime Minister. The first SAP premier (General Louis Botha

Louis Botha

Louis Botha was an Afrikaner and first Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa—the forerunner of the modern South African state...

) had died in office in 1919, during the previous Parliament.

The National Party became the official opposition, for the first time.

Delimitation of electoral divisions

The South Africa Act 1909

South Africa Act 1909

The South Africa Act 1909 was an Act of the British Parliament which created the Union of South Africa from the British Colonies of the Cape of Good Hope, Natal, Orange River Colony, and the Transvaal Colony. The Act also made provisions for admitting Rhodesia as a fifth province of the Union in...

 had provided for a delimitation commission to define the boundaries for each electoral division. The representation by province, under the third delimitation report of 1919, is set out in the table below. The figures in brackets are the number of electoral divisions in the previous (1913) delimitation. If there is no figure in brackets then the number was unchanged.

Provinces	Cape	Natal	Orange Free State	Transvaal	Total
Divisions	51	17	17	49 (45)	134 (130)

Results

The vote totals in the table below may not give a complete picture of the balance of political opinion, because of unopposed elections (where no votes were cast) and because contested seats may not have been fought by a candidate from all major parties.

The total registered electorate was 421,790. The votes cast were 282,361 (including 4,876 spoilt ballots).

	Party	Seats	Seats %	Votes	Votes %	Leader
	National Party National Party (South Africa) The National Party is a former political party in South Africa. Founded in 1914, it was the governing party of the country from 4 June 1948 until 9 May 1994. Members of the National Party were sometimes known as Nationalists or Nats. Its policies included apartheid, the establishment of a...	44	32.84	101,227	36.48	General J. B. M. Hertzog
	South African Party South African Party The South African Party was a political party that existed in the Union of South Africa from 1911 to 1934.-History:The outline and foundation for the party was realized after the election of a 'South African party' in the 1910 South African general election under the leadership of Louis Botha...	41	30.60	90,512	32.62	General Jan Smuts Jan Smuts Jan Christiaan Smuts, OM, CH, ED, KC, FRS, PC was a prominent South African and British Commonwealth statesman, military leader and philosopher. In addition to holding various cabinet posts, he served as Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa from 1919 until 1924 and from 1939 until 1948...
	Unionist Party Unionist Party (South Africa) The Unionist Party of South Africa was a pre-apartheid South African political party, which contested elections to the Union of South Africa parliament from the 1910 South African general election until its merger into the South African Party just before the 1921 South African general...	25	18.66	38,946	14.03	Sir Thomas Smartt
	Labour Party Labour Party (South Africa) The South African Labour Party, formed in March 1910 following discussions between trade unions and the Independent Labour Party of Transvaal, was a professedly democratic socialist party representing the interests of the white working class.-History:...	21	15.67	40,639	14.64	Colonel F. H. P. Creswell Frederic Creswell Colonel Frederic Hugh Page Creswell was a British-born Labour Party politician in South Africa. He was Minister of Defence from 1924 to March 1933.-Early life:...
	Independent Independent (politician) In politics, an independent or non-party politician is an individual not affiliated to any political party. Independents may hold a centrist viewpoint between those of major political parties, a viewpoint more extreme than any major party, or they may have a viewpoint based on issues that they do...	3	2.24	5,986	2.16	-
	Socialist	-	-	202	0.07	Bill Andrews William H. Andrews (unionist) William Henry Andrews , commonly known as Bill Andrews, was the first chairman of the South African Labour Party and the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of South Africa...
	Total	134