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promoting growth in this sector. The UP failed to realize the enormous economic benefits of apartheid to these large
and influential groups and did not prioritize segregation as much as the NP.
As regards election tactics, the NP was extremely adroit at exploiting white fears while campaigning in the 1948
election. Because the UP had seemed to take a fairly lukewarm stance towards both integration and segregation,
the NP was able to argue that a victory for the UP would ultimately lead to a black government in South Africa. NP
propaganda linked black political power to Communism, an anathema to many white South Africans at the time.
Slogans such as "Swart Gevaar" ("Black Peril"), "Rooi Gevaar" ("Red Peril"), "Die kaffer op sy plek" ("The Kaffir in
his place"), and "Die koelies uit die land" ("The coolies out of the country") played upon and amplified white
anxieties. Much was made of the fact that Smuts had developed a good working relationship with Joseph
Stalin during World War II, when South Africa and the USSR were allies in the fight against Nazi Germany. Smuts
had once remarked that he "doffs his cap to Stalin" and the NP presented this remark as proof of Smutss latent
Communist tendencies.
Smuts government's controversial immigration programme served to further inflame Afrikaner disquiet. Under this
programme, numerous British immigrants had moved to South Africa and were perceived to have taken homes and
employment away from (white) South African citizens. Moreover, it was claimed that the intention behind such plans
was to swamp the Afrikaners, who had a higher birth rate than the British diaspora, with British immigrants so that
Afrikaners would be outnumbered at the polls in future elections.
In preparation for the 1948 election, the NP moderated its stance on republicanism. Because of the immense and
abiding national trauma caused by the Anglo-Boer War, transforming South Africa into a republic and dissolving all
ties between South Africa and the United Kingdom had been an important mission for earlier incarnations of the NP.
English speaking South Africans tended to favour a close relationship with the UK, and so the republican project
became a source of conflict between the two largest white groups in South Africa. A staunchly pro-republic stance
alienated moderate Afrikaners who had supported South Africa's participation in World War II and wished to achieve
reconciliation between their own people and English speakers. When the NP agreed to compromise its fiercely
republican standpoint, conceding that South Africa should remain a Dominion in the Commonwealth, many Afrikaner
UP supporters switched allegiance.
Demarcation of electoral district boundaries favoured the NP. Most of the 70 seats won by the National Party during
the 1948 election were in rural areas, whereas most of the 65 seats won by the United Party were in the urban
areas. According to the Constitution that South Africa had at the time, the constituencies in the rural areas were
smaller than those in urban areas. This meant that there were more rural constituencies than urban ones. This was
to the benefit of the National Party, since it tended to do well in rural areas in terms of votes. Despite winning
140,000 fewer votes than the UP, the NP/AP coalition gained a plurality of seats in Parliament. It has been
calculated that if rural and urban votes had been of equal value, the UP would have won 80 seats, the NP/AP 60
seats, and other parties the remaining seats, thus giving the UP a majority.
Smuts and his cabinet were blamed for many of the hardships that occurred as a result of South Africa's
participation in World War II. During the war petrol was rationed by means of coupons, and bakeries were ordered
not to bake white bread so as to conserve wheat. After the war some of these measures continued, as South Africa
exported food and other necessaries to Britain and the Netherlands. South Africa even provided Britain with a loan
of 4 million ounces of gold. These measures caused local shortages of meat and the unavailability of white bread.
The Smuts government was blamed for this, as well as for the rate of inflation and the government's dismal housing
record. All these factors provided ammunition for the NP.
The UP at the time has been characterized as cumbersome and lacking vigour while the NP displayed energy and
superior organizational skills. World War II had a bonding effect on the UP and white South Africans generally. Once
this external uniting force fell away, Smuts lost a great deal of control over the UP as more and more voters
considered alternatives to his tired regime; humiliatingly, the Prime Minister lost his parliamentary seat (Standerton)
to an NP challenger. As can be seen from the final tally of seats, Smuts and his party proved unable to counter the
many grievances raised by the NP in an effective way, and this inability led to a narrow NP victory.
After the 1948 election, the ruling coalition succeeded in fully enfranchising the mostly Afrikaans- and Germanspeaking voters in South West Africa, later known as Namibia upon independence in 1990; the result being that this
gave the National Party more or less six reliable votes in parliament.