Magaliesberg (House of Assembly of South Africa constituency)

Magaliesberg was a short-lived constituency in the Transvaal Province of South Africa, which existed from 1929 to 1938. It covered a rural area around the Magaliesberg mountains, on the outskirts of Pretoria. 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, Magaliesberg was a conservative seat with a largely Afrikaans-speaking electorate. It was held for its entire existence by a single MP, Sarel François Alberts, who had previously contested Witwatersberg for the National Party on two occasions. Magaliesberg was a more favourable seat for the NP than its predecessor, and Alberts was able to handily defeat former Witwatersberg MP N. J. Pretorius. In 1933, their parties - the NP and the South African Party - contested the election as a coalition, and Alberts, like many other incumbent MPs across South Africa, was unopposed for re-election. He followed most of his party into the United Party in 1934, and left parliament when Magaliesberg was abolished in 1938.

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