The 1961 South African general election was the first general election

General election

In a parliamentary political system, a general election is an election in which all or most members of a given political body are chosen. The term is usually used to refer to elections held for a nation's primary legislative body, as distinguished from by-elections and local elections.The term...

 after 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...

 became a republic

Republic

A republic is a form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, have supreme control over the government and where offices of state are elected or chosen by elected people. In modern times, a common simplified definition of a republic is a government where the head of...

 following the 1960 South African referendum

South African referendum, 1960

In 1960, the National Party government of South Africa held a referendum on whether or not the then Union of South Africa should abandon its status as a Commonwealth realm and become a republic...

. The 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...

 under Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd

Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd

Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd , commonly identified as H.F. Verwoerd, was Prime Minister of South Africa from 1958 until his assassination in 1966...

 won a majority 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...

.

The National Union Party - led by J.D. du P. Basson and ex-Chief Justice Fagan in alliance with the United Party - had been formed as a "bridge" to the United Party for moderate nationalists who were unhappy with Verwoerd's leadership, but the party failed and later merged with the United Party.

This election also saw the first general election appearance of the liberal

Liberalism

Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

 Progressive Party

Progressive Party (South Africa)

The Progressive Party was a liberal party in South Africa that opposed the ruling National Party's policies of apartheid, and championed the Rule of Law. For years its only member of parliament was Helen Suzman...

, which had broken away from the United Party in 1959. The new party retained one MP, in the form of Helen Suzman

Helen Suzman

Helen Suzman, DBE was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician.-Biography:Helen Suzman, a life-long citizen of South Africa, was born as Helen Gavronsky in 1917 to Jewish immigrants....

. She was to remain its sole parliamentary representative until 1974.

End of black representation

During the previous Parliament the seats of the three MPs and four Senators representing black South Africans had been abolished. The 1961 election produced the first Parliament with no representation at all for black South Africans. .

Coloured Representative Members

The second election for the four coloured representative members took place on 4 October 1961, before the (white voters only) general election on 8 October 1961. Under the Separate Representation of Voters Act 1951, the members were to serve until the dissolution of the new Parliament.

The four seats were won by Independents, with United Party support. The recently formed Progressive Party did not contest the four vacancies.

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, for general roll voters in the four provinces. The representation by province, under the eleventh delimitation report of 1958, is set out in the table below. The figures in brackets are the number of electoral divisions in the previous (1953) delimitation. If there is no figure in brackets then the number was unchanged.

This was only the second general election, in South African history, where the boundaries were unchanged from the previous election.

Provinces	Cape	Natal	Orange Free State	Transvaal	Total
Divisions	52 (54)	16 (15)	14 (13)	68	150

Composition at the dissolution

At the end of the 12th Parliament elected since the Union of 1910, when it was dissolved in 1961, the House of Assembly consisted of two groups of members. White voters were represented by 156 general roll members and coloured voters in Cape Province by four white MPs known at the time as Coloured Representative Members (CRM).

The general election only affected the representatives of white voters. The other members were elected on a different date (see above).

The representation by party and province, at the dissolution was:-

Province	National	United	Progressive	National Union	CRM	Total
Cape (general)	33	14	5	-	-	52
Cape (CRM)	-	-	-	-	4	4
Natal	2	11	3	-	-	16
Orange Free State	14	-	-	-	-	14
South-West Africa	5	-	-	1	-	6
Transvaal	48	17	3	-	-	68
Total	102	42	11	1	4	160

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 1,800,426. The votes cast were 802,079 (including 4,518 spoilt votes).

	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...	105	67.31%	370 395	46.11%	Hendrik Verwoerd
	United Party United Party (South Africa) The United Party was South Africa's ruling political party between 1934 and 1948. It was formed by a merger of most of Prime Minister Barry Hertzog's National Party with the rival South African Party of Jan Smuts, plus the remnants of the Unionist Party...	49	31.41%	288 217	35.88%	Sir de Villiers Graaff
	Progressive Party Progressive Party (South Africa) The Progressive Party was a liberal party in South Africa that opposed the ruling National Party's policies of apartheid, and championed the Rule of Law. For years its only member of parliament was Helen Suzman...	1 Helen Suzman Helen Suzman, DBE was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician.-Biography:Helen Suzman, a life-long citizen of South Africa, was born as Helen Gavronsky in 1917 to Jewish immigrants....	0.64%	69 045	8.60%	Jan Steytler Jan Steytler Jan van Aswegen Steytler was a liberal South African politician and the first leader of the Progressive Party . He was born in Burgersdorp, in the then Cape Province now Eastern Cape Province.-Background:...
	National Union Party	1	0.64%	50 279	6.26%	H.A. Fagan
	Independents and Others	-	-	22 871	2.85%	-
	Conservative Workers' 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:...	-	-	2 461	0.31%	-
	Total	156		803 268

The overall composition of the House, after the general election.

Province	National	United	Progressive	National Union	Independents	Total
Cape (general)	34	18	-	-	-	52
Cape (CRM)	-	-	-	-	4	4
Natal	2	14	-	-	-	16
Orange Free State	14	-	-	-	-	14
South-West Africa	6	-	-	-	-	6
Transvaal	49	17	1	1	-	68
Total	105	49	1	1	4	160