United Party (South Africa)

The United National Party South African ( Afrikaans Suid - Afrikaanse Nasionale Verenigde Party ) was the governing party of South Africa in the years 1934 to 1948. You went on December 5, 1934 the National Party ( NP ) and the South African Party forth. Colloquially it was called " United Party " ( " Verenigde Party" ). At first, she was supported by the British, Boers and Coloureds and achieved in the parliamentary elections, large majorities.

It was headed until September 4, 1939 James Barry Hertzog Munnick. Due to its neutral setting to World War II, he lost the party presidency and the premiership to Jan Smuts. He ruled South Africa during the war and the immediate postwar years.

Smuts lost with the UP the election of 1948 to the then Herenigde Nasionale Party, from 1951, NP. From 1950 to 1956 Jacobus Gideon Nel Strauss held the party chairmanship. This was followed in 1956 Sir David Pieter De Villiers Graaff. 1959 split from the Progressive Party. In 1977, the UP was renamed New Republic Party ( Nuwe Republiek Party ). Many members resigned from the party. Some were then in the Progressive Federal Party ( Progressiewe Federale Party ), which spoke out against apartheid. Others changed the ruling NP. After the parliamentary elections of 1977, the number of members of the New Republic Party fell from 41 to 10

The UP was against apartheid as a system, however, held fast to the rule of the white minority.