Apartheid

=== Disenfranchisement of Coloured voters ===
{{Main|Coloured vote constitutional crisis}}
[[File:Cape-coloured-children.jpg|thumb|Cape Coloured children in [[Bonteheuwel]]]]
[[File:Annual per capita personal income by race group in South Africa relative to white levels.svg|lang=en|thumb|Annual per capita personal income by race group in South Africa] relative to white levels.]]

In 1950, D. F. Malan announced the NP's intention to create a Coloured Affairs Department.<ref>Van der Ross, R. E.; Marais, Johannes Stephanus (1986). ''The rise and decline of apartheid: a study of political movements among the Coloured people of South Africa, 1880–1985.'' Tafelberg. p. 255.</ref> [[J.G. Strijdom]], Malan's successor as Prime Minister, moved to strip voting rights from black and Coloured residents of the Cape Province. The previous government had introduced the Separate Representation of Voters Bill into Parliament in 1951, turning it to be an [[Separate Representation of Voters Act, 1951|Act]] on 18 June 1951; however, four voters, G Harris, W D Franklin, W D Collins and Edgar Deane, challenged its validity in court with support from the United Party.<ref>Davis, Dennis; Le Roux, Michelle (2009). ''Precedent & Possibility: The (Ab)use of Law in South Africa.'' Juta and Company Limited. p. 20. {{ISBN|978-1-77013-022-7}}.</ref> The Cape Supreme Court upheld the act, but reversed by the Appeal Court, finding the act invalid because a two-thirds majority in a joint sitting of both Houses of [[Parliament of South Africa|Parliament]] was needed to change the [[entrenched clause]]s of the [[Constitution of South Africa#Previous constitutions of South Africa|Constitution]].<ref>''Rielations.'' Penguin Books. p. 332.</ref> The government then introduced the High Court of Parliament Bill (1952), which gave Parliament the power to overrule decisions of the court.<ref>Hatch, John Charles (1965). ''A history of post-war Africa.'' Praeger. p. 213.</ref> The Cape Supreme Court and the Appeal Court declared this invalid too.<ref>Witz, Leslie (2003). ''Apartheid's festival: contesting South Africa's national pasts.'' Indiana University Press. p. 134.</ref>

In 1955 the Strijdom government increased the number of judges in the Appeal Court from five to 11, and appointed pro-Nationalist judges to fill the new places.<ref>Wilson, Monica Hunter; Thompson, Leonard Monteath (1969). ''The Oxford history of South Africa, Volume 2.'' Oxford University Press. p. 405.</ref> In the same year they introduced the Senate Act, which increased the Senate from 49 seats to 89.<ref>"South Africa official yearbook." (1991). South African State Department of Information. p. 18. [http://www.gcis.gov.za/resource_centre/sa_info/yearbook/index.html Current edition available here] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120306094222/http://www.gcis.gov.za/resource_centre/sa_info/yearbook/index.html |date=6 March 2012 }}</ref> Adjustments were made such that the NP controlled 77 of these seats.<ref>Muller, C. F. J. (1975). ''Five hundred years: a history of South Africa.'' Academica. p. 430.</ref> The parliament met in a joint sitting and passed the [[Separate Representation of Voters Act]] in 1956, which transferred Coloured voters from the common voters' roll in the Cape to a new Coloured voters' roll.<ref>Mountain, Alan (2003). ''The first people of the Cape: a look at their history and the impact of colonialism on the Cape's indigenous people.'' New Africa Books. p. 72.</ref> Immediately after the vote, the Senate was restored to its original size. The Senate Act was contested in the Supreme Court, but the recently enlarged Appeal Court, packed with government-supporting judges, upheld the act, and also the Act to remove Coloured voters.<ref>Du Pre, R H. (1994). ''Separate but Unequal – The 'Coloured' People of South Africa – A Political History.'' Jonathan Ball Publishers, Johannesburg. pp. 134–139.</ref>

The 1956 law allowed Coloureds to elect four people to Parliament, but a 1969 law abolished those seats and stripped Coloureds of their right to vote. Since Indians had never been allowed to vote, this resulted in whites being the sole enfranchised group.

Separate representatives for coloured voters were first elected in the [[1958 South African general election|general election of 1958]]. Even this limited representation did not last, being ended from 1970 by the [[Separate Representation of Voters Amendment Act, 1968]]. Instead, all coloured adults were given the right to vote for the [[Coloured Persons Representative Council]], which had limited legislative powers. The council was in turn dissolved in 1980. In 1984 a new constitution introduced the [[Tricameral Parliament]] in which coloured voters elected the [[House of Representatives of South Africa|House of Representatives]].

A 2016 study in ''[[The Journal of Politics]]'' suggests that disenfranchisement in South Africa had a significant negative effect on basic service delivery to the disenfranchised.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Kroth|first1=Verena|last2=Larcinese|first2=Valentino|last3=Wehner|first3=Joachim|date=19 May 2016|title=A Better Life for All? Democratization and Electrification in Post-Apartheid South Africa|journal=The Journal of Politics|volume=78|issue=3|page=000|doi=10.1086/685451|s2cid=53381097|issn=0022-3816|url=http://spire.sciencespo.fr/hdl:/2441/7s1hteu07q9uspsehhm8nsvifc/resources/wp53-larcinese.pdf|access-date=13 November 2018|archive-date=22 September 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170922025236/http://spire.sciencespo.fr/hdl:/2441/7s1hteu07q9uspsehhm8nsvifc/resources/wp53-larcinese.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>