Wakkerstroom was a constituency in the Transvaal Province of South Africa, which existed from 1910 to 1974. It covered a rural area in the eastern Transvaal, centred on the town of Wakkerstroom. 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, Wakkerstroom was a conservative seat and had a largely Afrikaans-speaking electorate. It was first taken by the National Party in 1924, and when the NP merged into the United Party in 1934, Wakkerstroom's MP Pieter van der Merwe Martins joined neither the UP nor the dissident Purified National Party. He instead stood for re-election in 1938 as an independent, and lost out to the United Party's William Richard Collins, former MP for Ermelo. Collins died in 1944, and the resulting by-election saw the seat fall to the Herenigde Nasionale Party, four years ahead of the party's nationwide election victory in 1948.

Members ElectionMemberParty 1910 J. A. Joubert Het Volk 1913 by N. J. de Wet South African 1915 G. A. Kolbe 1920 James van der Merwe 1921 1924 A. S. Naudé National 1929 1933 P. v. d. M. Martins 1934 Independent 1938 W. R. Collins United 1943 1944 by J. G. W. van Niekerk HNP 1948 1952 by H. E. Martins National 1953 1958 1961 1966 1970 1972 by W. L. Weber 1974 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.

Detailed results Elections in the 1910s

Elections in the 1920s

Elections in the 1930s

References