Bethlehem was a constituency in the Orange Free State Province of South Africa, which existed from 1910 to 1994. Named after the town of Bethlehem, the seat covered a large rural area in the east of the province, bordering Natal as well as Lesotho. Throughout its existence it elected one member to the House of Assembly. Franchise notes 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 Orange River Colony, and its predecessor the Orange Free State, the vote was restricted to white men, and as such, elections in the Orange Free State 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.
History Bethlehem, like most of the Orange Free State, was a highly conservative seat throughout its existence and had a largely Afrikaans-speaking electorate. Its first MP, Abraham Fischer, was the leader of the provincial Orangia Unie party (which later became the Free State branch of the South African Party) and had served as Prime Minister of the Orange River Colony prior to unification. Fischer won the seat unopposed, as did a number of his party colleagues, but he died in 1913, at which point the tensions between Louis Botha and J. B. M. Hertzog had led to Hertzog breaking away to form the National Party. Hertzog was extremely popular in the Free State, and his party quickly took over the Orangia Unie's dominant position. The by-election caused by Fischer's death was won unopposed by the new party, giving Bethlehem the distinction of being the first constituency to elect a Nationalist MP under that label, and the party would hold the seat throughout the remainder of its existence.
In 1934, Hertzog joined forces with Jan Smuts and the SAP to create the United Party, a move that was controversial with his Afrikaner base, and nineteen Nationalist MPs broke away to form the Purified National Party under D. F. Malan's leadership. One of the nineteen was Roelof Abraham Theodorus van der Merwe, MP for Bethlehem, and he held the seat against a UP challenger in one of very few close elections in the seat's history. It was only in the 1980s that the seat began to see serious contests again, as first the Herstigte Nasionale Party and then the Conservative Party began to challenge the NP from the right. Unlike several other Free State seats, however, Bethlehem continued to elect Nationalist MPs right up until the end of apartheid.
Members ElectionMemberParty 1910 Abraham Fischer Orangia Unie 1914 by J. H. B. Wessels National 1915 1920 1921 1924 1927 by D. G. Conradie 1929 R. A. T. van der Merwe 1933 1934 PNP 1938 1939 HNP 1943 C. J. O. Wessels 1948 A. J. R. van Rhyn 1952 by G. J. Knobel National 1953 1958 1961 1966 1968 by L. J. Botha 1970 1974 1977 1981 C. V. van der Merwe 1985 by P. J. Farrell 1987 1989 1994 constituency abolished Schoeman, B.M. (1977). Parlementêre verkiesings in Suid-Afrika 1910-1976. Pretoria: Aktuele Publikasies. Standard Encyclopaedia of Southern Africa (1972). "House of Assembly" (vol. 5, pp. 617–636). Cape Town: Nasionale Opvoedkundige Uitgewery (Nasou). South Africa 1980/81: Official Yearbook of the Republic of South Africa. Johannesburg: Chris van Rensburg Publications. South Africa 1983: Official Yearbook of the Republic of South Africa. Johannesburg: Chris van Rensburg Publications. Government Gazette of South Africa, No. 10751. 22 May 1987. Pretoria: Government of South Africa. Government Gazette of South Africa, No. 12109. 20 September 1989. Pretoria: Government of South Africa.
Detailed results Elections in the 1910s
Elections in the 1920s
Elections in the 1930s
References