Ermelo (House of Assembly of South Africa constituency)

Ermelo was a constituency in the Transvaal Province of South Africa, which existed from 1910 to 1994. Named after the town of Ermelo, it covered a rural area in the eastern Transvaal, bordering Natal as well as Eswatini. 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]

Like most of the rural Transvaal, Ermelo had a largely Afrikaans-speaking electorate. It only changed hands twice in its 84-year history: in 1948, when the Herenigde Nasionale Party captured it as part of its nationwide sweep of rural constituencies, and in 1987, when the incumbent Nationalist MP was defeated by a candidate of the hardline pro-apartheid Conservative Party. However, there was a minor exception in the form of Albert Hertzog, the seat's long-serving Nationalist MP, cabinet minister and leader of the National Party's verkramp (conservative) faction, who left the party in 1969 and formed the Herstigte Nasionale Party. He continued to sit as an HNP MP for about six months, and was soundly defeated for re-election by the official NP candidate.

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