The Herstigte Nasionale Party (Reconstituted National Party) is a South African political party which was formed as a far-right splinter group of the now defunct National Party in 1969. The party name was commonly abbreviated as HNP, evoking the Herenigde Nasionale Party, although colloquially they were also known as the Herstigtes. The party is, unlike other splinter factions from the National Party, still active but politically irrelevant.
History
Formation
The HNP was formed in 1969 by Albert Hertzog (son of former Prime Minister General JBM Hertzog) in protest against the decision by Prime Minister B.J. Vorster to authorize the presence of Maori players and spectators during the tour of New Zealand rugby union team in South Africa in 1970. He was also against Vorster's re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Malawi and that country's appointment of a Black ambassador to South Africa. The name was chosen to reflect the initials of the earlier Herenigde Nasionale Party (Reunited National Party), the name used by the National Party in the election of 1948. Seeking a return to Calvinism as the basis of South Africa, the party advocated complete racial segregation and the adoption of Afrikaans as the only official language. The bulk of the membership of the new party was made up of rural and small town working and lower middle class Afrikaners who resented what they saw as the National Party devoting their attentions to the concerns of urban Afrikaner elites. The Afrikaner Broederbond denied membership to any HNP member.
The party contested the 1970 general election although its campaign was the subject of government crackdowns and attacks. The party's 78 candidates were all defeated, including its four Members of Parliament, all of whom had been National Party members before defecting to the new HNP. The party also contested 50 seats in the 1974 general election but failed to make an impact in an election where reformists advanced. During this election the HNP boycotted the English language press, as the party opposed the use of the language. It also contested three by-elections in 1975 and 1976 and enjoyed some growth, taking second place ahead of the United Party in the two seats that that group contested. The HNP captured 3.3% of the vote in the 1977 general election before increasing to 14.1% in 1981 as right wing disenchantment with the NP grew, but on no occasion did it win any seats and its newly acquired voters soon shifted their support to the Conservative Party.
Eugène Terre'Blanche had been a member of the HNP, but broke with the group in 1973, after becoming disillusioned with their adherence to electoral politics. He then established the paramilitary Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging. He also differed from the HNP in his belief in the establishment of a white homeland in South Africa, something the HNP rejected as unnecessary.
Emergence in the 1980s
Under the leadership of Jaap Marais, the former deputy leader who replaced the retiring Hertzog in 1977, the party emerged as a force amongst white South Africans. In 1979 the evidence of its potential was demonstrated in a series of by-elections when it seemed to threaten the position of the ruling party. In a near-breakthrough focused on right-wing Afrikaners dissatisfied with the Botha government, it obtained 14.1% support in the 1981 general election. In the constituency of Rustenburg, the HNP candidate came hundreds of votes from besting the incumbent National MP, but to no avail. In October 1985 the party's general secretary Louis Stofberg won a by-election in Sasolburg on a campaign based on the presence of a mixed couple in the constituency and opposition to the tax system, in which the wealthier white population paid more tax than the other ethnic groups. The victory came in the midst of a failed electoral alliance between the HNP and the Conservative Party that had been established earlier that year, with Andries Treurnicht claiming it was a first step to merging the HNP into the Conservatives, something the conviction-oriented Marais firmly opposed. With the CP not filing a candidate, Stofberg represented the constituency for two years as a sole voice attacking the NP from the right. From 1987, the CP captured the role of official opposition under Treurnicht with strong support from Afrikaner voters and so the electoral basis for the HNP was drained.