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1920 South African general election

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Field	Value
country	South Africa
flag_year	1912
type	Parliamentary
previous_election	1915 South African general election
previous_year	1915
election_date	10 March 1920
next_election	1921 South African general election
next_year	1921
seats_for_election	All 134 seats in the House of Assembly
majority_seats	68
registered	421,790
turnout	66.94% ( 4.63pp)
image1	JBM Hertzog - SA (cropped).jpg
leader1	J. B. M. Hertzog
leaders_seat1	Smithfield
party1	National Party (South Africa)
last_election1	29.41%, 27 seats
seats1	43
seat_change1	16
popular_vote1	90,512
percentage1	32.62%
swing1	3.21pp
image2	Genl JC Smuts (cropped).jpg
leader2	Jan Smuts
leaders_seat2	Pretoria West
party2	South African Party
last_election2	36.67%, 54 seats
seats2	41
seat_change2	13
popular_vote2	101,227
percentage2	36.48%
swing2	0.19pp
image4
leader4	Thomas Smartt
leaders_seat4	Fort Beaufort
party4	Unionist Party (South Africa)
last_election4	19.42%, 39 seats
seats4	25
seat_change4	14
popular_vote4	38,946
percentage4	14.03%
swing4	5.39pp
image5	Kolonel Cresswell (cropped).jpg
leader5	Frederic Creswell
leaders_seat5	Troyeville
party5	Labour Party (South Africa)
last_election5	9.63%, 4 seats
seats5	21
seat_change5	17
popular_vote5	40,639
percentage5	14.65%
swing5	5.01pp
title	Prime Minister
before_election	Jan Smuts
before_party	South African Party
after_election	Jan Smuts
after_party	South African Party
map_image	1920 South African general election map - results by province.svg
map_caption	Results by province

General elections were held in South Africa on 10 March 1920 to elect the 134 members of the House of Assembly. This was for the third Union Parliament.

The National Party (NP) won the largest number of seats, but not a majority. The South African Party (SAP) minority government continued in office, with Unionist Party support in Parliament. This was the third successive term of SAP government, but only the second period with General Jan Smuts as Prime Minister. The first SAP premier (General Louis Botha) had died in office in 1919, during the previous Parliament.

The National Party became the official opposition for the first time.

Delimitation of electoral divisions

The South Africa Act 1909 had provided for a delimitation commission to define the boundaries for each electoral division. The representation by province, under the third delimitation report of 1919, is set out in the table below. The figures in brackets are the number of electoral divisions in the previous (1913) delimitation. If there is no figure in brackets then the number was unchanged.

Provinces	Cape	Natal	Orange Free State	Transvaal	Total
Divisions	51	17	17	49 (45)	134 (130)

Results

Main article: Results of the 1920 South African general election

The vote totals in the table below may not give a complete picture of the balance of political opinion, because of unopposed elections (where no votes were cast) and because contested seats may not have been fought by a candidate from all major parties.

References

South Africa 1982: Official Yearbook of the Republic of South Africa, published by Chris van Rensburg Publications

References

. (20 March 1920). ["The South African General Election was held on March 10th"](http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/20th-march-1920/2/the-south-african-general-election-was-held-on-mar). *The Spectator*.
''South Africa 1982'', page 129
Dirk J. Potgieter (1971) ''Standard Encyclopaedia of Southern Africa, Volume 4'', p. 272

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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