South Africa has a long history of racial conflict dating back to the arrival of Dutch settlers in 1652. The discovery of gold and diamonds in the late 1800s intensified divisions between white and black South Africans. In the early 1900s, the Union of South Africa was established as a self-governing British dominion that restricted political rights along racial lines. The apartheid system of the mid-1900s legally enforced racial segregation and white supremacy. Growing opposition led to democratic elections in 1994, when Nelson Mandela was elected president, marking the end of apartheid and the beginning of majority rule.

1. SOUTH AFRICA
HISTORY & DEVELOPMENT OF
PRESENT GOVERNMENTAL
SYSTEM

2. History
European Arrival
• Racial conflict dates from the Dutch arrival at the Cape of Good Hope in
1652, when the Dutch East India Company or VOC, 1602-1798
established a resupply station at Cape Town for its fleets traveling
between Holland and its empire in South and Southeast Asia.
British acquisition
• The British conquered the Cape largely to prevent it from falling into the
hands of Napoleon, and thus to protect their only sea route to their empire
in South Asia.
The Discoveries of Gold and Diamonds.
• discovery of minerals in the late nineteenth century: diamonds
(1867) and gold( 1886)-dramatically altered the economic and
political structure of southern Africa. The growing mineral
industry created ever-greater divisions between British and Boer,
white and black, rich and poor.

3. The South African War
• The South African War, fought by the Boers and the British between
1899 and 1902, was primarily a struggle for the control of gold.
The Union of South Africa
• The Union of South Africa, established on May 31, 1910, as a self-
governing state within the British Empire, legislatively restricted
political and property rights to whites at the expense of blacks.
• Nationalist Movements & Failure of the
Black Nationalist Movement.
• Two nationalist movements emerged in the aftermath of the formation
of the union, one racially and ethnically exclusivist, the other much
more disparate in its membership and aims.
• They had to rely on appeals, deputations, and petitions to the British
government asking for equal treatment before the law. The British
responded by pointing out that South Africa was now self-governing
and that the petitioners had to make their case to the local white rulers

4. The Ideology of Apartheid
• racial discrimination into a state policy of white supremacy.
Every person resident in South Africa was legally assigned,
largely on the basis of appearance, to one racial group--white,
African, coloured, or Asian.
Freedom Charter.
• 1955 representatives of the ANC, as well as white, coloured,
and Indian organizations opposed to apartheid, drafted a
Freedom Charter as a basic statement of political principles.
The Republic of South Africa (1961–present)
• The Constitution of 1961 (formally the Republic of South
Africa Constitution Act, 1961) was the fundamental law of
South Africa. Under the terms of the constitution South Africa
left the Commonwealth and became a republic.

5. End of Apartheid; the beginning.
• growing instability in South Africa, many foreign investors
began to withdraw their money as a result, the economy became
increasingly sluggish. 1979-goverment allow black workers to
establish unions as a necessary step toward industrial peace.
The Apartheid Regime under P. W. Botha.
• early 1980s-Prime Minister P. W. Botha led his government in
implementing a new constitutional arrangement, one that
embraced the concept of multiracial government but, at the
same time, perpetuated the concept of racial separation
De Klerk's Reforms.
1989 -Botha suffered stroke-he was succeeded by Frederik Willem
de Klerk.-brought the apartheid system of racial segregation to an
end and negotiated a transition to majority rule in his country.
White, coloureds, Indians vote in parliamentary elections.

6. Democratic South African elections
• May 9, 1994, Nelson Mandela was unanimously elected
president by the National Assembly. South Africa had made
a peaceful political transition from an apartheid police state
to a democratic republic.
South Africa gains a New Constitution.
• May 1996, the Constitutional Court approved the new
("final") constitution, intended to govern after the five-
year transition. President Mandela signed the new
constitution into law on December 10, 1996, and the
government began phasing in provisions of the new
document in February 1997.