1948 South African general election

26 May 1948, not 28 May

South Africa held its general election on 26 May 1948 — not on 28 May, the date attached to this entry, and not on 4 June, when Malan actually took office.

D. F. Malan's Herenigde Nasionale Party won 70 seats and its Afrikaner Party ally won nine, giving the coalition 79 and the ability to form a government.

Jan Smuts's United Party took 524,230 votes — 49.18 percent — and 65 seats; its Labour ally won six. The Nationalist-Afrikaner coalition polled 443,719 votes, or 41.63 percent.

How fewer votes produced more seats

Under the constituency-based electoral system, Malan's party and its ally converted a smaller share of the national vote into more parliamentary seats, helped by their strength in more heavily weighted rural constituencies.

The electorate that produced this result was not a universal one. It was racially restricted and overwhelmingly white, with only limited nonwhite participation under surviving Cape qualifications and separate representation.

Nine days to the premiership

Winning the election and taking office were separate events. Malan's official term as prime minister ran from 4 June 1948 to 30 November 1954, and he formed an all-Afrikaner cabinet.

The coalition had campaigned under the apartheid slogan. Racial segregation and disenfranchisement long predated the election; what followed made older segregation more rigid, systematic and aggressively enforced.