Soutpansberg (House of Assembly of South Africa constituency)

Soutpansberg, also spelled Zoutpansberg early in its history, was a constituency in the Transvaal Province of South Africa, which existed from 1910 to 1994. It covered the Soutpansberg region of far-northern Transvaal, close to the Limpopo River and the border with Zimbabwe. 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]

Soutpansberg, like most of the rural Transvaal, had a largely Afrikaans-speaking electorate and was a conservative seat throughout its existence. Its first MP, Hendrik Mentz, was a former Boer soldier and ally of Louis Botha who served in cabinet for most of his time as an MP. In 1924, he was defeated for re-election by Oswald Pirow of the National Party, who would go on to become one of the leading ideologues of that party, but he only represented Soutpansberg for five years, opting instead to (unsuccessfully) challenge Jan Smuts in his seat of Standerton in 1929. In the 1930s, the South African and National parties fused into the United Party, and Soutpansberg was held by the new party until its nationwide electoral defeat in 1948.

From then on, Soutpansberg would be a safe Nationalist seat. Its longest-serving MP, Stephanus Petrus "Fanie" Botha, served in cabinet under John Vorster and P. W. Botha, resigning in disgrace in 1983 after it was revealed that he'd taken money from Israel. The resulting by-election was won by the nascent Conservative Party - the first electoral victory for that party, which had formed less than two years earlier, and which would see much success in the rural Transvaal as the NP moved away from unconditional white supremacy. Thomas Langley, the Conservative MP elected in 1984, would represent Soutpansberg until the end of apartheid.

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