In the 1994 South African election, the National Party nearly quadrupled their vote count over the last apartheid election. Who made up these new voters? In general, what issues were the election fought on?

by tombomp

On the face of it, it doesn't seem obvious why the National Party would suddenly gain support from voters it had previous disenfranchised. I'm wondering how the National Party presented itself in this election.

Made_of_Cathedrals

Ok, let’s dust off my degrees in politics and history.

1994 was the first time black people were allowed to vote in SA. So although the NP were the ruling party going into the election, really they only had a majority of the 10% of the population that was classified as ‘white’. So being generous, they probably went in with about 7% of the total popular vote.

So the question then becomes, who would go to all the trouble of fighting for freedom, only to vote for their oppressors? This seems like a legitimate question. And there were two factors at play here

  1. De Klerk (the last apartheid president) did help to dismantle apartheid by negotiating with the ANC. He shares a Nobel Peace Prize with Nelson Mandela. While the narrative now is that the collapse of apartheid was inevitable, he was responsible for there being less bloodshed then their might have been. The result was that he ran for president again on the platform that he had abolished apartheid and saved everyone and was therefore the rightful heir. (Nelson Mandela, though a deeply respected icon now, was at that time a recently released criminal who admitted to the crime of terrorism. He was as yet untested as a leader of a country.)

  2. NP through the above process sets themselves up as a new progressive party, ‘breaking with the old ways’ and as a viable option for those who don’t want to vote ANC. Now ANC at this time enjoys overwhelming support among those classified as ‘black / African’ and enjoys particular support from the AmaZulu and isiXhosa speakers. But during this time there is a lot of violence in the mines, the mining towns and these fracture along ‘tribal’ lines (some evidence suggests the involvement of parties whose best interests were served by portraying black people as violent and unable to run a country - so stoking this violence intentionally). The ANC is at this time huge and monolithic, but it can’t make everyone feel safe. Victims of the amaZulu / isiXhosa violence, for example, tended to vote Inkatha FP. The apartheid government had spent years playing favourites and intentionally separating Coloured, Indian and Asian voters from the African majority. It was in their best interests not to be sucked in to be a small part of a big party that did not represent their communities and instead, align themselves to a viable second option that perhaps they could have more control over the issues the party supported.

These are very broad strokes, by no means did any person vote just because of the color of their skin, each person negotiated their own choice as is their right and freedom. But the fact that NP “nearly quadrupled their vote” is misleading because it comes off a very low base, because although they came second I the election, it was only with 20% of the vote. The fact is that 90% of the population was voting for the first time, 63% chose the ANC and the rest was spillage of people who for some reason did not want to vote ANC. This statistical fact that you quote is accurate but is more of a statistical artifact than an important political movement.

Thanks for reading my very superficial analysis of what are actually very interesting voter statistics.