Ventersdorp was a constituency in the Transvaal Province of South Africa, which existed from 1920 to 1966 and again from 1981 to 1994. Named after the town of Ventersdorp, it covered a rural area in the western Transvaal. Throughout its existence it elected one member to the House of Assembly and one to the Transvaal Provincial Council.
Franchise notes When the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910, the electoral qualifications in use in each pre-existing colony were kept in place. In the Transvaal Colony, and its predecessor the South African Republic, the vote was restricted to white men, and as such, elections in the Transvaal Province were held on a whites-only franchise from the beginning. The franchise was also restricted by property and education qualifications until the 1933 general election, following the passage of the Women's Enfranchisement Act, 1930 and the Franchise Laws Amendment Act, 1931. From then on, the franchise was given to all white citizens aged 21 or over. Non-whites remained disenfranchised until the end of apartheid and the introduction of universal suffrage in 1994.
History Like most of the rural Transvaal, Ventersdorp was a conservative seat with a largely Afrikaans-speaking electorate. In its early years it was a marginal seat, with the South African and National parties fighting several close contests, but that era ended with the election of independent Jacob Wilkens in 1933. Wilkens was re-elected in 1938 for the United Party, but left that party alongside J. B. M. Hertzog in 1939, and was defeated for re-election by a new UP candidate in 1943. He returned one final time in 1948, this time for the Herenigde Nasionale Party, which took the seat as part of their sweep of the rural Transvaal. In 1966, the constituency was abolished and its MP, Johannes Casper Greyling, moved to the new seat of Carletonville.
Ventersdorp was recreated in 1981, and won by Benjamin Hugh Wilkens for the National Party, but in 1987 it was one of many rural Transvaal seats to fall to Andries Treurnicht's new hard-right Conservative Party. Stefanus Petrus van Vuuren, the Conservative MP elected in 1987, would represent Ventersdorp until the end of apartheid.
Members ElectionMemberParty 1920 B. I. J. van Heerden South African 1921 1924 L. J. Boshoff National 1929 1933 Jacob Wilkens Independent 1938 United 1939 HNP 1943 H. J. Visser United 1948 Jacob WilkensHNP 1953 J. C. Greyling National 1958 1961 1966 Constituency abolished ElectionMemberParty 1981 B. H. Wilkens National 1987 S. P. van Vuuren Conservative 1989 1994 Constituency abolished Schoeman, B.M. (1977). Parlementêre verkiesings in Suid-Afrika 1910-1976. Pretoria: Aktuele Publikasies. Standard Encyclopaedia of Southern Africa (1972). "House of Assembly" (vol. 5, pp. 617–636). Cape Town: Nasionale Opvoedkundige Uitgewery (Nasou). South Africa 1980/81: Official Yearbook of the Republic of South Africa. Johannesburg: Chris van Rensburg Publications. South Africa 1983: Official Yearbook of the Republic of South Africa. Johannesburg: Chris van Rensburg Publications. Government Gazette of South Africa, No. 10751. 22 May 1987. Pretoria: Government of South Africa. Government Gazette of South Africa, No. 12109. 20 September 1989. Pretoria: Government of South Africa.
Detailed results Elections in the 1920s
Elections in the 1930s
References