South African general election, 1915

20 October 1915 (1915-10-20)

All 130 seats in the House of Assembly

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	Louis Botha	Thomas Smartt	J. B. M. Hertzog
Party	South African	Unionist	National Party
Last election	67 seats	39 seats	n/a
Seats won	54	39	27
Seat change	13	0	n/a
Popular vote			75,623
Percentage			29.41

House of Assembly after the election

Prime Minister before election

Louis Botha
South African

Elected Prime Minister

Louis Botha
South African

The 1915 South African general election was held on 20 October 1915 for the 130 seats in the House of Assembly of the Union of South Africa. This was the second Union Parliament. The governing South African Party (SAP) of General Louis Botha emerged from the election as the largest party, but did not receive an overall majority.

Botha formed a minority government, during the second successive term of the SAP in office, which survived with some parliamentary support from the official opposition Unionist Party.^[1]

Delimitation of electoral divisions

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The South Africa Act 1909 had provided for a delimitation commission to define the boundaries for each electoral division. The representation by province, under the second delimitation report of 1913, is set out in the table below. The figures in brackets are the number of electoral divisions in the previous (1910) delimitation. If there is no figure in brackets then the number was unchanged.^[2]

Provinces	Cape	Natal	Orange Free State	Transvaal	Total
Divisions	51	17	17	45 (36)	130 (121)

Nominations

Since the last general election, the National Party (NP) had split away from the South African Party (SAP). The formal foundation of the new party had been in 1914.

Eight of the 130 seats were uncontested. There were unopposed returns for 5 Unionist Party, 2 SAP and 1 NP candidates.

In the 122 contested constituencies, the candidates nominated included 86 SAP, 83 NP, 39 Unionist and 49 Labour.^[3]

Party attitudes

General Botha stood for a policy of conciliation between Afrikaans and English speaking white people. The SAP was mostly supported by moderates of both races. General Hertzog led a republican party which supported a two streams policy – the two white races developing separately. The Unionists were anxious to maintain the imperial connection. The Unionists accordingly preferred the continuation in power of the SAP to the prospect of an NP government.^[4]

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 most contested seats were not fought by a candidate from all major parties.

The total registered electorate was 365,307. The votes cast were 261,433 (including 4,330 spoilt ballots).^[5]

Party		Seats^[6]	Seats %	Votes^[7]	Votes %	Leader
	South African	54	41.54	94,285	36.67	General Louis Botha
	Unionist	39	30.00	49,917	19.42	Sir Thomas Smartt
	National Party	27	20.77	75,623	29.41	General J. B. M. Hertzog
	Independent	6	4.62	12,383	4.82	-
	Labour	4	3.08	24,755	9.63	Colonel F. H. P. Creswell
	Socialist League	-	-	140	0.05	Bill Andrews
	Total	130

The 27 NP candidates elected represented three of the four provinces - 7 from Cape Province, 16 from the Orange Free State and 4 from Transvaal.^[8]

References

The Rise of the South African Reich, by Brian Bunting (first published by Penguin Africa Library in 1964 and revised in 1969) accessed on an ANC website 3 August 2010
South Africa 1982 Official Yearbook of the Republic of South Africa, published by Chris van Rensburg Publications
The South African Constitution, by H.J. May (3rd edition 1955, Juta & Co)

↑ The Times, edition of 18 October 1915; in an article on the election refers to the Ministerialist (ie South African) Party and the Unionist Party, only contesting three constituencies against each other in three cornered fights, "these two parties having laid aside their differences until the war is over".
↑ South Africa 1982, page 129
↑ The Times, edition of 18 October 1915.
↑ The South African Constitution, page 134.
↑ South Africa 1982, page 176
↑ South Africa 1982, page 174 (seats by party)
↑ South Africa 1982, page 176 (votes by party)
↑ The Rise of the South African Reich, Chapter 1: The Birth of the National Party

Elections and referendums in South Africa

General elections	1910 1915 1920 1921 1924 1929 1933 1938 1943 1948 1953 1958 1961 1966 1970 1974 1977 1981 1984 1987 1989 1994 1999 2004 2009 2014

Municipal elections	1995–96 2000 2006 2011 2016

Referendums	1960 1983 1992

See also: Elections and referendums in the Boer republics and South African colonies Elections and referendums in South African Bantustans

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