Brakpan (House of Assembly of South Africa constituency)

Brakpan
Former constituency for the South African House of Assembly
Location of Brakpan within the Witwatersrand (1981)
Province	Transvaal
Electorate	21,727 (1989)
Former constituency
Created	1920
Abolished	1994
Number of members	1
Last MHA	F. J. le Roux (CP)
Replaced by	Gauteng

Brakpan was a constituency in the Transvaal Province of South Africa, which existed from 1915 to 1994. It covered a part of the East Rand centred on the town of Brakpan. 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]

The mines of the Witwatersrand were an early stronghold of South African trade unionism, and this made Brakpan fertile ground for the Labour Party - though not quite as safe as neighbouring seats like Benoni or Jeppes. It was held by the party from 1921 to 1929, and then became a swing seat between the National and United parties. Its United Party MP from 1938 to 1953, Alfred Ernest Trollip, later defected to the National Party and became one of its first English-speaking cabinet ministers.

In 1953, the NP took the seat, and it was safe for them for the next thirty years. In 1982, however, a hardline pro-apartheid faction around Transvaal NP leader and former cabinet minister Andries Treurnicht broke off to form the Conservative Party, and Brakpan MP François Jacobus le Roux defected to the new party. He held it in 1987 and 1989, against strong challenges from his former party, and represented the seat until the end of apartheid.

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