South African general election, 1970

22 April 1970 (1970-04-22)

All 166 seats in the House of Assembly

	First party	Second party

Leader	B. J. Vorster	De Villiers Graaff
Party	National	United
Last election	126 seats	39 seats
Seats won	118	47
Seat change	8	8
Popular vote	820,968	561,647
Percentage	54.43%	37.23%
Swing	3.88%	0.14%

House of Assembly after the election

Prime Minister before election

B. J. Vorster
National

Elected Prime Minister

B. J. Vorster
National

South Africa

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The 1970 South African general election was held on 22 April for the 166-seat House of Assembly. Parliament was dissolved on 2 March and the deadline for the submission of candidates was 13 March. This was the first time in South African history that the House elected was responsible entirely to white people, as the seats of the four MPs elected separately by "qualified" Cape Coloured expired in the same year.

The election saw yet another victory for the National Party (NP), for the first time under the leadership of John Vorster, and saw a number of new representatives elected, including Chris Heunis, future Acting President and Pik Botha, future Minister of Foreign Affairs for 17 years, who made his maiden speech demanding that the government sign the UN Declaration of Human Rights.^[1]

However, the NP lost some support for the first time since the 1948 election and its number of seats was reduced by eight. This could be attributed to losing votes to the right-wing splinter Herstigte Nasionale Party (Reconstituted National Party), which never succeeded to win any seats, however.

Helen Suzman, member of parliament for Houghton, retained her seat as the sole representative of the liberal Progressive Party.

House of Assembly results

Elections were held in 155 of the 166 constituencies (11 members elected unopposed). There were 2 028 487 registered voters and 1 508 248 votes were cast (74.7% of voters in contested constituencies).^[2]

Party		Leader	Candidates	Votes	%Votes	Seats	%Seats	Previous	Change
	National Party	John Vorster	145	820 968	54.43%	118	71.1%	126	-8
	United Party	De Villiers Graaff	149	561 647	37.23%	47	28.3%	39	+8
	Herstigte Nasionale Party	Albert Hertzog	80	53 763	3.57%	0	0.0%	0	±0
	Progressive Party	Jan Steytler	19	51 760	3.43%	1	0.6%	1	±0
	Independents		14	9 622	1.35%	0	0.0%	0	±0
Total valid			407	1 497 760	100.0%	166	100.0%	166	-
Spoilt votes				10 524
Total votes				1 508 284

* one seat was filled in a subsequent by-election

Sources

Elections and referendums in South Africa

General elections	1910 1915 1920 1921 1924 1929 1933 1938 1943 1948 1953 1958 1961 1966 1970 1974 1977 1981 1984 1987 1989 1994 1999 2004 2009 2014

Municipal elections	1995–96 2000 2006 2011 2016

Referendums	1960 1983 1992

See also: Elections and referendums in the Boer republics and South African colonies Elections and referendums in South African Bantustans

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