
The Cape Qualified Franchise was the system of multi-racial
franchise that was adhered to in the
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony (), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope. It existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three ...
, and in the
Cape Province
The Province of the Cape of Good Hope (), commonly referred to as the Cape Province () and colloquially as The Cape (), was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequently the Republic of South Africa. It encompassed the old Cape Co ...
in the early years of the
Union of South Africa
The Union of South Africa (; , ) was the historical predecessor to the present-day South Africa, Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the British Cape Colony, Cape, Colony of Natal, Natal, Tra ...
. Qualifications for the right to vote at parliamentary elections were applied equally to all men, regardless of race.
This local system of multi-racial suffrage was later gradually restricted, and eventually abolished, under various
National Party and
United Party governments. In 1930
white
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
women were enfranchised, and in 1931
property qualifications for white voters were removed. In 1936
black
Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...
voters were then removed from the common voters' rolls and
allowed only to elect separate members in 1936, and subsequently
denied all representation in the
House of Assembly
House of Assembly is a name given to the legislature or lower house of a bicameral parliament. In some countries this may be at a subnational level.
Historically, in British Crown colonies as the colony gained more internal responsible g ...
in 1960.
Coloured
Coloureds () are multiracial people in South Africa, Namibia and, to a smaller extent, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Their ancestry descends from the interracial mixing that occurred between Europeans, Africans and Asians. Interracial mixing in South ...
voters
similarly followed in
1958
Events
January
* January 1 – The European Economic Community (EEC) comes into being.
* January 3 – The West Indies Federation is formed.
* January 4
** Edmund Hillary's Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition completes the thir ...
and
1970
Events
January
* January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC.
* January 5 – The 7.1 1970 Tonghai earthquake, Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli ...
, respectively.
Provisions and early history
Representative government (1853)
The Cape Qualified Franchise first appeared in 1853, when the Cape Colony received representative government and elected its
first parliament. This was done without regard to race, and a non-racial voters roll became part of the Cape's 1853 Constitution.
There were a range of motivations for the creation of this early non-racial political system. Many powerful members of the Cape's political elite in the 1850s, leaders such as
John Fairbairn,
Saul Solomon
Saul Solomon (25 May 1817 – 16 October 1892) was an influential liberal politician of the Cape Colony, a British colony in what is now South Africa. Solomon was an important member of the movement for responsible government and an opponent of ...
,
John Molteno
Sir John Charles Molteno (; 5 June 1814 – 1 September 1886) was a politician and businessman who served as the first Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1872 to 1878.
Early life
Born in London into a large Anglo-Italian family, Molten ...
and
William Porter, genuinely seemed to believe that it was the only fair way to run a society, and that racial distinctions counted as unjust discrimination. In 1838, it had already been ruled in the Cape Colony that the law was not to discriminate on the basis of race or colour.
On the other hand, there was an additional pragmatic motivation, in that enfranchising the non-white population was seen as a way to bring peace to the
Cape's frontier and social harmony to its cities. As such, political inclusiveness was also seen as a way of pre-empting and forestalling black resistance in the future.
When queried by worried white voters on the issue of black citizens voting,
William Porter, the Cape
attorney-general
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general (: attorneys general) or attorney-general (AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have executive responsibility for law enf ...
famously responded:
''Why should you fear the exercise of franchise? This is a delicate question but it must be touched upon. I do not hesitate to say that I would rather meet the Hottentot at the hustings, voting for his representative, than in the wilds with his gun upon his shoulder. Is it not better to disarm them by granting them the privileges of the constitution? If you now blast all their hopes and tell them they shall not fight their battles constitutionally, do not you yourselves apply to them the stimulus to fight their battles unconstitutionally?'' (quoted in Simons and Simons, 1983: 23)
A minimum property ownership of £25 qualified the male Cape citizen to vote or to stand in parliament. As this included all forms of property ownership, including traditional African communal land tenure, it was very low, relative to the suffrage qualifications that applied elsewhere in the world at the time. In fact, it was widely considered to be excessively low, and there were several political movements that tried to have it raised. The system was known as the "£25 vote". Decades later, literacy was added as an additional criterion to qualify for suffrage. The existence of voter qualifications was a standard feature of early democracies, and
women's suffrage
Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffra ...
was virtually unknown in the world at the time. However while the Cape shared these restrictive features, its explicitly colour-blind political system was unusually inclusive.
Responsible government (1872)

In spite of its elected legislature, the Cape was still under the direct control of the
colonial governor, until 1872, when the colony attained "
responsible government
Responsible government is a conception of a system of government that embodies the principle of parliamentary accountability, the foundation of the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy. Governments (the equivalent of the executive br ...
" under the leadership of its first Prime Minister,
John Molteno
Sir John Charles Molteno (; 5 June 1814 – 1 September 1886) was a politician and businessman who served as the first Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1872 to 1878.
Early life
Born in London into a large Anglo-Italian family, Molten ...
. This act brought all
three branches of the state's government under local control, made the Executive democratically accountable (or "responsible" as it was known), and thus gave the
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony (), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope. It existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three ...
a degree of legislative independence from the
British government
His Majesty's Government, abbreviated to HM Government or otherwise UK Government, is the central government, central executive authority of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. . It also stimulated a new political awareness among Cape residents of all backgrounds, with the most notable immediate growth being in Black political consciousness.
The new ministry held the non-racial nature of its institutions to be one of its core ideals, and enshrined it into its new constitution. The commitment to treat Black African and Coloured people as "fellow subjects with white men" was explicitly reaffirmed by the new government, which struck down opposition motions to restrict voting qualifications in 1874, and again in 1878. Campaigns also began in the
Eastern Cape
The Eastern Cape ( ; ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, and its largest city is Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth). Due to its climate and nineteenth-century towns, it is a common location for tourists. It is also kno ...
frontier region, to register the rural
Xhosa
Xhosa may refer to:
* Xhosa people, a nation, and ethnic group, who live in south-central and southeasterly region of South Africa
* Xhosa language, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, principally spoken by the Xhosa people
See als ...
peasant farmers as voters, with early, mission-educated Xhosa activists at the forefront. Educational associations and
Xhosa language
Xhosa ( , ), formerly spelled ''Xosa'' and also known by its local name ''isiXhosa'', is a Bantu language, indigenous to Southern Africa and one of the official languages of South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Xhosa is spoken as a first language ...
political newspapers such as ''
Isigidimi samaXhosa'' were founded, which assisted with political mobilisation. Overall the Cape's Black electorate grew rapidly during the 1870s, especially in urban areas. In addition, traditional Xhosa forms of communal land tenure were fully recognised by the Cape government. This made the parties in such traditional property arrangements fully eligible as voters. Consequently, the first Black African political groupings such as ''Imbumba yama Nyama'' ("Unity is Strength") also had their origins in this era.
This renewed commitment to non-racial government was not unopposed. Some
English settlers in the
Eastern Cape
The Eastern Cape ( ; ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, and its largest city is Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth). Due to its climate and nineteenth-century towns, it is a common location for tourists. It is also kno ...
felt threatened by it, and their parliamentary representatives, such as
John Paterson and
Gordon Sprigg
Sir John Gordon Sprigg, (27 April 1830 – 4 February 1913) was an English-born colonial administrator and politician who served as prime minister of the Cape Colony on four occasions. Early life
Sprigg was born in Ipswich, England, into a ...
, consequently pushed for the disenfranchising of their
Xhosa
Xhosa may refer to:
* Xhosa people, a nation, and ethnic group, who live in south-central and southeasterly region of South Africa
* Xhosa language, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, principally spoken by the Xhosa people
See als ...
neighbours. The
Eastern Cape Separatist League
The Eastern Province Separatist League was a loose political movement of the 19th century Cape Colony. It fought not for independence, but for a separate colony in the eastern half of the Cape Colony independent from the Cape government, with a mo ...
gradually became the pro-
imperialist
Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power ( diplomatic power and cultural imperialism). Imperialism fo ...
Progressive Party, which later came to power under
Cecil Rhodes
Cecil John Rhodes ( ; 5 July 185326 March 1902) was an English-South African mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. He and his British South Africa Company founded th ...
and
Leander Jameson.
In addition, the predominantly
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...
-speaking
Western Cape
The Western Cape ( ; , ) is a provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the List of South African provinces by area, fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , an ...
began to see the birth of rural
Cape Dutch
Cape Dutch, also commonly known as Cape Afrikaners, were a historic socioeconomic class of Afrikaners who lived in the Western Cape during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The terms have been evoked to describe an affluent, educated sect ...
groups such as
"Onze Jan" Hofmeyr's
Afrikaner Bond which also had mixed opinions about African franchise. Right wing media outlets such as the ''Zingari'' and the ''Lantern'' began the habit of disparagingly labelling MLAs who were elected by the Cape Coloured electorate as "Malays", regardless of their own ethnicity.
However the Western Cape's predominantly English-speaking political elite was still strongly in favour of the "£25 vote", with many liberals such as
Saul Solomon
Saul Solomon (25 May 1817 – 16 October 1892) was an influential liberal politician of the Cape Colony, a British colony in what is now South Africa. Solomon was an important member of the movement for responsible government and an opponent of ...
even supporting its expansion into total
universal franchise
Universal suffrage or universal franchise ensures the right to vote for as many people bound by a government's laws as possible, as supported by the " one person, one vote" principle. For many, the term universal suffrage assumes the exclusion ...
. This liberal
Cape Town
Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...
elite was the origin of what became known as the "Cape Liberal Tradition" and also formed the core of the later
South African Party
The South African Party (, ) was a political party that existed in the Union of South Africa from 1911 to 1934.
History
The outline and foundation for the party was realized after the election of a 'South African party' in the 1910 South Af ...
.
Erosion and abolition
Early restrictions

The low wealth qualification of the "£25 vote" meant that nearly all owners of any form of property could vote. In addition, the Cape's liberal laws recognised traditional Black land tenure and communal property rights, making such forms of ownership equally valid as voter qualifications. However originally the bulk of the Black population did not exercise their suffrage, partially because most lived in the rural frontier mountains where lack of infrastructure and information made it rare for Blacks to register or to travel to the widely dispersed voting stations.
During the late 19th century, as an increasing number of Black South Africans living in the Cape exercised their voting rights, the pro-imperialist white political bloc in the Eastern Cape led by Rhodes and Jameson moved to roll back the political rights granted to the Black inhabitants in the colony. After coming to power, the nascent
Progressive Party, led by Rhodes and fellow politician
Sprigg, began enacting legislation to curb Black voting rights.
Cape Parliamentary Registration Act (1887)
This bill excluded "tribal forms of tenure from the property qualifications for the vote" (Davenport 1987: 108). Prime Minister
Gordon Sprigg
Sir John Gordon Sprigg, (27 April 1830 – 4 February 1913) was an English-born colonial administrator and politician who served as prime minister of the Cape Colony on four occasions. Early life
Sprigg was born in Ipswich, England, into a ...
passed it to prevent communal/tribal land-owners from voting and thus to disenfranchise a large proportion of the Cape's Black citizens who implemented traditional forms of land ownership. This was intended to counter the growing number and influence of Black voters, especially in the
Eastern Cape
The Eastern Cape ( ; ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, and its largest city is Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth). Due to its climate and nineteenth-century towns, it is a common location for tourists. It is also kno ...
where Sprigg's home constituency was. The act was justifiably controversial and faced fierce opposition in parliament. The Cape's constitution forbade discrimination on the basis of race, and many liberal MPs argued that this act was simply disguised discrimination.
The Cape's
Xhosa politicians labelled the act ''"Tung' umlomo"'' ("Sew up the mouth"), and responded by greatly intensifying their efforts to register the many thousands of rural Blacks who nonetheless still qualified as potential voters, but who had yet to register. Through their efforts, the number of active Black voters reached its former level again by 1891, and continued to climb.
Cape Franchise and Ballot Act (1892)
Cape Prime Minister
Cecil Rhodes
Cecil John Rhodes ( ; 5 July 185326 March 1902) was an English-South African mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. He and his British South Africa Company founded th ...
was concerned that, as more and more Black men exercised their constitutional right to vote, many Cape constituencies were becoming controlled by the Black vote. He had earlier voiced his views on Black political empowerment in a speech in the Cape Parliament in June 1887 in which he stated:
''"My motto is equal rights for every civilized man south of the Zambezi. What is a civilized man? It is a man who has sufficient education to write his name, and has some property or works, not a loafer. We will treat the Natives as long as they remain in a state of barbarism".''
''"The native is to be treated as a child and denied the franchise. We must adopt a system of despotism, such as works in India, in our relations with the barbarism of South Africa"'' (Magubane 1996, citing Verschoyle
index
Index (: indexes or indices) may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities
* Index (''A Certain Magical Index''), a character in the light novel series ''A Certain Magical Index''
* The Index, an item on the Halo Array in the ...
1900:450).
However the Cape's 1872 "
responsible government
Responsible government is a conception of a system of government that embodies the principle of parliamentary accountability, the foundation of the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy. Governments (the equivalent of the executive br ...
" constitution still explicitly prohibited any discrimination on the basis of race or colour.
Rhodes's
Franchise and Ballot Act
The Franchise and Ballot Act (1892) was an act of the Cape Colony Parliament, driven by Prime Minister Cecil Rhodes, which raised the property franchise qualification, thus disenfranchising a large proportion of the Cape's non-white voters, and ...
of 1892 got around this by raising the franchise qualifications, from the very low £25, to the significantly higher £75, disenfranchising the poorest classes of all race groups, but affecting a disproportionately large percentage of Black voters. Thus while some poor whites lost the vote, the even poorer Black and Coloured voting blocks suffered disproportionately. (Simons & Simons 1969: 50).
The act also added an educational qualification, namely that voters needed to be literate. This was intended to disenfranchise the Cape's Xhosa electorate as, coming from a culture with an oral tradition, the majority of Xhosa voters were as yet illiterate.
As in 1887, the act faced strong opposition from parliamentary defenders of the original Cape constitution.
The Glen Grey Act (1894)
The Glen Grey Act was passed by the government of
Cecil Rhodes
Cecil John Rhodes ( ; 5 July 185326 March 1902) was an English-South African mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. He and his British South Africa Company founded th ...
in 1894 and stipulated a system of individual land holding for Black areas. It also complemented Sprigg's earlier discriminatory legislation by completely excluding property held under this new "Glen Grey title" as a voting qualification. (Davenport 1987: 108).
Union and the Cape Province (1910–1937)
The successive restrictions of the preceding decades meant that by 1908, when the
National Convention
The National Convention () was the constituent assembly of the Kingdom of France for one day and the French First Republic for its first three years during the French Revolution, following the two-year National Constituent Assembly and the ...
on Union was held, only "22,784 Native and Coloured persons out of a total of 152,221 electors" were entitled to vote in Cape elections, even though the franchise system was, at least in principle, still non-racial.
The South Africa Act (1909)
During the negotiations which drafted the
South Africa Act
The South Africa Act 1909 ( 9 Edw. 7. c. 9) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that created the Union of South Africa out of the former Cape, Natal, Orange River, and Transvaal colonies. The act also allowed for potential admis ...
on Union, the last Cape Prime Minister, the liberal
John X. Merriman, fought unsuccessfully to have this multi-racial franchise system extended to the rest of South Africa. The attempt failed in the face of opposition from the white governments of the other constituent states, which were determined to entrench white rule.
The final version of the South Africa Act permitted the
Cape Province
The Province of the Cape of Good Hope (), commonly referred to as the Cape Province () and colloquially as The Cape (), was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequently the Republic of South Africa. It encompassed the old Cape Co ...
to keep a restricted version of its traditional franchise, whereby qualifications limited the suffrage of all citizens according to education and wealth. This led to the Cape being the only province in South Africa where
coloured
Coloureds () are multiracial people in South Africa, Namibia and, to a smaller extent, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Their ancestry descends from the interracial mixing that occurred between Europeans, Africans and Asians. Interracial mixing in South ...
s (mixed-race people) and Black Africans could vote. The act also permitted the Parliament of South Africa to prescribe all other voting qualifications.
However, according to the Act, Parliament was given the power to change the Cape's voting requirements by a two-thirds vote.
Overall the Act did little to protect black Africans, and ultimately enabled the later
apartheid government
Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...
to gradually whittle away and eventually abolish the Cape franchise.
Apartheid rule
Over the following years,
legislation
Legislation is the process or result of enrolling, enacting, or promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law it may be known as a bill, and may be broadly referred ...
was passed by Parliament to slowly erode the remaining colour-blind voters roll.
The 1929 and 1930 extensions of white voting rights were not granted to the non-white majority of the population. In 1931, the restricting franchise qualifications were removed for white voters, but kept in place for Black and "
Coloured
Coloureds () are multiracial people in South Africa, Namibia and, to a smaller extent, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Their ancestry descends from the interracial mixing that occurred between Europeans, Africans and Asians. Interracial mixing in South ...
" voters. The white share of the vote was further augmented by the enfranchising of white women, as this was not extended to Black African or Coloured women. The result was a system in the Cape whereby the white population enjoyed universal adult franchise while the non-white population was still restricted by sex-, education-, and wealth-based qualifications.
By 1937, only a small number of black Africans in the
Cape Province
The Province of the Cape of Good Hope (), commonly referred to as the Cape Province () and colloquially as The Cape (), was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequently the Republic of South Africa. It encompassed the old Cape Co ...
still remained on the common voters' roll.
Under the
Representation of Natives Act, 1936, three white members were elected to represent black voters in the province, with the voters' roll being limited to only 11 000. These seats were later abolished.
Similarly the coloured voters in Cape Province were removed from the common/general roll, under the
Separate Representation of Voters Act, 1951
The Separate Representation of Voters Act No. 46 was introduced in South Africa on 18 June 1951. Part of the legislation during the apartheid era, the National Party introduced it to enforce racial segregation, and was part of a deliberate pr ...
. Although as the Act was challenged in what is known as the
Coloured vote constitutional crisis
The Coloured vote constitutional crisis, also known as the Coloured vote case, was a constitutional crisis that occurred in the Union of South Africa during the 1950s as the result of an attempt by the Nationalist government to remove coloured ...
, and not completely enforced until the later 1950s, the last year to see non-whites participate in a general election was
in 1953. Coloured electors complying with qualifications were subsequently given four white MPs between 1958 and 1970. These seats were abolished in 1968 through the
Separate Representation of Voters Amendment Act, 1968
The Separate Representation of Voters Amendment Act, 1968 (Act No. 50 of 1968) was an act of the Parliament of South Africa enacted under the government of B. J. Vorster, which repealed the Separate Representation of Voters Act, 1951.
The act ...
, enacted on behalf of Prime Minister
B. J. Vorster
Balthazar Johannes "B. J." Vorster (; 13 December 1915 – 10 September 1983), better known as John Vorster, was a South African politician who served as the prime minister of South Africa from 1966 to 1978 and the fourth state president of So ...
.
This erased the last remnant of the Cape Qualified Franchise, and thus of any political representation for non-whites in South Africa.
The Cape liberal tradition
The values of the early Cape constitution, of which the Cape Qualified Franchise was merely a result, became known in later years as the Cape Liberal tradition. After the fall of the Cape's political system, the severely weakened movement survived as an increasingly liberal, local opposition against the Apartheid government of the dominant
National Party.
Principles such as a colour-blind political system, enforceable civil rights and an independent judiciary (as well as a growing belief in gender equality) became central features of this political tradition.
In their fight against Apartheid, the remaining proponents were progressively sidelined as organisations that more fully represented the Black African majority took the lead in the struggle for
multiracial democracy.
However, as effective allies against the growing Nationalist movement, there was a degree of collaboration and exchange of ideas between the remaining Cape liberals and the growing Black African liberation movements, especially in the early years of the struggle.
Thus while the Cape liberals' own role became less relevant in the direction of the liberation movement, their non-racial values were successfully propagated by the political ancestors of the ANC, and came to reside at the centre of South Africa's post-Apartheid Constitution.
[P. Lewsen: ''The Cape Liberal Tradition – Myth or Reality''. The Societies of Southern Africa in the 19th &20th Centuries. Vol. I, 10 (1969–70)]
See also
*
Eastern Cape Separatist League
The Eastern Province Separatist League was a loose political movement of the 19th century Cape Colony. It fought not for independence, but for a separate colony in the eastern half of the Cape Colony independent from the Cape government, with a mo ...
*
Cape Independence
*
Reconstruction era
The Reconstruction era was a period in History of the United States, US history that followed the American Civil War (1861-65) and was dominated by the legal, social, and political challenges of the Abolitionism in the United States, abol ...
in the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
**
Disfranchisement after the Reconstruction era
Disfranchisement after the Reconstruction era in the United States, especially in the Southern United States, was based on a series of laws, new constitutions, and practices in the South that were deliberately used to prevent black citizens from ...
References
{{Political history of South Africa
Politics of the Cape Colony
20th century in South Africa
Political history of South Africa
Political terminology in South Africa
Election law in South Africa