Krugersdorp (House of Assembly of South Africa constituency)

Krugersdorp
Former constituency for the South African House of Assembly
Location of Krugersdorp within South Africa (1981)
Province	Transvaal
Electorate	22,398 (1989)
Former constituency
Created	1910
Abolished	1994
Number of members	1
Last MHA	Leon Wessels (NP)
Replaced by	Gauteng

Krugersdorp was a constituency in the Transvaal Province of South Africa, which existed from 1910 to 1994. It covered a part of the West Rand centred on the town of Krugersdorp. Throughout its existence it elected one member to the House of Assembly and one to the Transvaal Provincial Council.

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.^[1]

Krugersdorp had a largely Afrikaans-speaking electorate, and in its later years was a safe seat for the governing National Party, but it passed through several different hands before that. Its most notable early MP was mining magnate Abe Bailey, who sat as an independent but was considered close to the Unionist and South African parties. He stood for re-election as an SAP candidate in 1924, but was defeated by Dutch Reformed Church minister Bernhardus Hattingh for the National Party. Hattingh died in 1934, as his party was preparing to merge into the new United Party, and in the resulting by-election, the seat was captured by Labour candidate Marthinus Johannes van den Berg. The latter would serve in parliament until 1970, defecting to the Herenigde Nasionale Party ahead of the 1948 general election and serving out his career on the government benches. Krugersdorp's last MP, Leon Wessels, served in cabinet under F. W. de Klerk and was seen as a verlig ("enlightened" or liberal) Nationalist; he faced a stiff challenge from Clive Derby-Lewis in 1987 but held his seat. After the end of apartheid he would go on to serve on the South African Human Rights Commission.

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