Turffontein (House of Assembly of South Africa constituency)

Turffontein was a constituency in the Transvaal Province of South Africa, which existed from 1910 to 1994. It covered a part of the southern suburbs of Johannesburg centred on the suburb of Turffontein. 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]

Turffontein was a socioeconomically mixed constituency that went through multiple different phases through its history. After Labour victories in 1920 and 1924, it became a safe United Party seat in the 1930s, with Frederick Sturrock representing the seat for over twenty years and serving in cabinet for a substantial part of that time. The UP continued to hold Turffontein for some time after Sturrock's retirement in 1950, the governing National Party only winning it in 1966 and the UP winning it back with André Fourie in 1970. Fourie had an unusual parliamentary career, losing his seat in 1974 to Marais Steyn of the NP, who had previously been an MP for the United Party before defecting in 1972 over disagreements with Harry Schwarz and the liberal wing of the party. Steyn was appointed ambassador to London in 1980, and was succeeded as MP for Turffontein by André Fourie, who had also defected to the NP in the meantime. Fourie remained the seat's MP until the end of apartheid, served a term in the non-racial National Assembly and finally represented Freedom Front Plus on the Cape Town City Council.

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