Albert (House of Assembly of South Africa constituency)

Albert (known as Albert-Aliwal from 1920 to 1924 and Albert-Colesberg from 1938 to 1948) was a constituency in the Cape Province of South Africa, which existed from 1910 to 1948. Named after the district of Albert, the seat initially covered a rural area along the Cape’s northeastern frontier, centred on the town of Burgersdorp. Throughout its existence it elected one member to the House of Assembly and one to the Cape 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. The Cape Colony had implemented a “colour-blind” franchise known as the Cape Qualified Franchise, which included all adult literate men owning more than £75 worth of property (controversially raised from £25 in 1892), and this initially remained in effect after the colony became the Cape Province. As of 1908, 22,784 out of 152,221 electors in the Cape Colony were “Native or Coloured”. Eligibility to serve in Parliament and the Provincial Council, however, was restricted to whites from 1910 onward.

The first challenge to the Cape Qualified Franchise came with the Women's Enfranchisement Act, 1930 and the Franchise Laws Amendment Act, 1931, which extended the vote to women and removed property qualifications for the white population only – non-white voters remained subject to the earlier restrictions. In 1936, the Representation of Natives Act removed all black voters from the common electoral roll and introduced three “Native Representative Members”, white MPs elected by the black voters of the province and meant to represent their interests in particular. A similar provision was made for Coloured voters with the Separate Representation of Voters Act, 1951, and although this law was challenged by the courts, it went into effect in time for the 1958 general election, which was thus held with all-white voter rolls for the first time in South African history. The all-white franchise would continue until the end of apartheid and the introduction of universal suffrage in 1994.^[1]

Like most rural seats, Albert was reliably conservative for most of its history. With the exception of its first election, in which it was won unopposed by Henry Burton for the South African Party, and the 1921 election, in which Albert-Aliwal was narrowly carried by the SAP, it was won by the National Party in every election in which it was contested. When Aliwal was recreated in 1924, SAP MP C. A. A. Sephton moved there, and Albert became a safe seat for the NP. L. J. Steytler of the NP represented the seat until 1938, at which point the Purified National Party’s F. H. Boltman narrowly won it over the United Party candidate and a spoiler Labour Party candidacy, the only time that party ever contested the seat. Boltman would hold the seat until its abolition, being re-elected for the Reunited National Party in 1943 on an increased majority.^[2]