National Party of South Africa facts for kids

National Party of South Africa was an Afrikaner dominated white South African nationalist political party that controlled the South African government from 1948 to 1994. It was founded in 1914 by J.B.M. Hertzog as a result of disagreements between him and the leaders of the South African Party, which he then was a member of. In 1948 its leader Daniel Francois Malan became Prime Minister of South Africa, and the party began instituting apartheid in South Africa. However, apartheid was only one among a variety of issues that helped bring the National Party to power. Most people who voted for the National Party in 1948 were voting more against the previous United Party led by Jan Smuts than for Malan's National Party. This was because of Smuts's support of the United Kingdom in the Second World War, and other issues that irritated Afrikaner voters such as the poverty of Afrikaners, the competition from native Africans for jobs, the urbanization of Afrikaner towns, and the threat of communism, which the Afrikaner voters generally felt Smuts had wrongly handled and felt that the problems were partially his fault. South African President FW de Klerk, the last South African government leader to belong to the party, disbanded apartheid in the 1990s and allowed all adults of all races to vote for the first time in 1994, which resulted in the National Party being voted out of office.

Images for kids

• 

  D. F. Malan, leader of the NP from 1934 until 1953

• 

  J. G. Strijdom, leader of the NP from 1953 until 1958

• 

  Jaap Marais was a powerful member of the party's verkrampte faction, which opposed any reforms to apartheid.

• 

  F. W. de Klerk shaking hands with ANC leader Nelson Mandela at the World Economic Forum in 1992

• 

  Share of National Party votes in 1994. The areas which voted for the National Party were largely Afrikaans- or English speaking

See also

In Spanish: Partido Nacional (Sudáfrica) para niños