Report of the Thirteenth Delimitation Commission (Verslag, Dertiende Afbakeningskommissie), Proclamation No. 14 of 1974¶
Delimitation Commission (Thirteenth); P. M. Cilliers (Chairman), R. P. B. Erasmus, G. P. van Rhyn (1974). Report of the Thirteenth Delimitation Commission (Verslag, Dertiende Afbakeningskommissie), Proclamation No. 14 of 1974. Government Gazette / Staatskoerant No. 4161, 8 February 1974. Government Printer, Pretoria.
| Type | primary source |
| Scope | Wider apartheid literature |
| Method | policy analysis |
| Period studied | 1965–1973 |
| Regions | South Africa (white parliamentary constituencies), Cape Province, Natal, Orange Free State, Transvaal, Witwatersrand, Pretoria |
| Themes | politics ideology elections, demography urbanisation, agriculture land, methods data sources |
| Citation key | delimitationcommissionthirteenthpmcillierschairman1974 |
Argument¶
This bilingual official report fixes the 165 white House of Assembly constituencies (and Orange Free State provincial council divisions) used in the 1974 election. Applying section 43 of the Constitution Act, it divides the white register of 31 May 1973 by 165 to get a quota and allows 15 per cent deviation either way, with a 30 per cent unload for rural 'special' divisions over 25,000 km2. Rural depopulation and urban/industrial growth force it to abolish eight rural seats and create thirteen new ones mostly on the Witwatersrand, Pretoria, Durban and the Cape Peninsula. It describes its method division by division and rejects party proposals that would cause larger boundary disturbance.
Evidence and method¶
Voters' lists corrected to 31 May 1973 supplied by the Secretary for the Interior, written and oral submissions and maps from the three parties in the House of Assembly, Prof. Kleynhans, Major Sive and Prof. Pauw, site inspections, and Surveyors-General boundary descriptions. Only white voters are counted.
Findings¶
- The constitutional amendment adds five seats to a total of 165 and shifts the provincial allocation (the Free State loses one). (p. 2)
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The white electorate was 2,141,354 at the fixed date, up 16.3 per cent on 1965. (p. 5)
Re.~ubllc.. .......... 2 141 354 (1 840 530) (10,3 ;(,)
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The quota was 12,978 (against 11,503 earlier), and divisions may range 15 per cent either side, to 14,924 or 11,032. (p. 5)
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Rural depopulation and the abolition of De Aar show the national pattern of urban growth at rural expense. (p. 3)
The depopulation of the north-eastern portion of the Cape Province .led to the abolition of De Aar.
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Rural seats of 25,000 km2 or more may be unloaded to 70 per cent of quota; sparsity is treated as grounds for fewer voters per rural seat, so urban seats carry more voters. (p. 6)
this Commission, after due con- sideration of the other relevant factors, also regarded the reference to sparsity and density of population as an indication that more voters are allocated to urban divisions than to rural electoral divisions.
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Twelve Cape rural divisions are now special divisions and Namakwaland exceeds 100,000 km2. (p. 8)
Namakwaland now has an area of more than 100 000 square kilometres.
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Transvaal's electorate passed one million for the first time and grew faster than the national total. (p. 33)
the number of voters in the Transvaal for the first Lime exceeded the million mark. As at the fixed date the number of Transvaal voters had increased by 162 947 to a total of 1 038 192
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Transvaal gains eight new seats, mostly around Pretoria, the Witwatersrand and the Vaal, after abolishing five. (p. 33)
on account of the abolition of five divisions, there are eight new electoral divisions in the delimited 76.
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Sasolburg is created as an industrial seat whose interests differ from rural Parys. (p. 27)
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Welkom and Odendaalsrus are grouped as a gold-mining constituency on community-of-interest grounds. (p. 29)
The electoral division of Welkom is pre-eminently a gold-mining area, as is the municipal area of Oden- daalsrus.
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The Transkei seat is renamed Griqualand East to avoid confusion with the 'homeland'. (p. 13)
Evidence ledger¶
Sources used¶
| Source | Kind | Period | How used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Constitution Act, section 40 as substituted by section 81 of the Constitution and Elections Amendment Act, 1973 (Act 79 of 1973) | legislation gazette | 1973 | Fixes the House of Assembly at 165 members and allocates seats per province (Cape 55, Natal 20, OFS 14, Transvaal 76). |
| Submissions by Prof. W. R. Kleynhans, Major R. Sive and Prof. S. Pauw, plus letters and telegrams from the public | interviews oral history | 1973 | Supplementary delimitation schemes; Prof. Pauw's proposal was followed for Springs. |
| Departmental recommendations of the Department of the Interior on practical amendments | commission or official report | late 1973 | Led to modifications of the provisional plan to ease application of the Electoral Laws. |
New data¶
Commission-compiled lists of all 165 House of Assembly divisions (and 28 OFS provincial council divisions) with voter totals, loads/unloads, polling-district composition and surveyor-certified boundary descriptions (Annexures 1-3), derived from 31 May 1973 voters' lists.
Inference¶
Quantification: Descriptive tables.
Administrative-statutory determination: the Commission computes a national quota from corrected white voter lists, then moves polling districts or blocks between divisions to bring loads within the +/-15 per cent band (70 per cent for special divisions over 25 000 km2), weighing party submissions, oral evidence and inspections on statutory factors. Reasoning proceeds case by case, comparing 1965 and 1973 voter numbers.
Key claims¶
| Claim | Basis | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| Rural areas of the Cape, Free State and south-eastern Transvaal were depopulating (in voter terms) relative to cities, leading to abolition of divisions such as De Aar, Harrismith, Odendaalsrus, Christiana, Wakkerstroom and Heidelberg. (p. 3) | Division-by-division comparison of 1973 voter numbers against 1965 numbers and the quota. | Partial data |
| Urban divisions were loaded above quota (about 9-14 per cent) and rural ones unloaded, in line with the Commission's practice of allocating more voters to urban than rural divisions. (p. 6) | Computed load/unload percentages per division in text and Annexure 1. | Systematic data |
The author's caveats¶
The Commission acknowledges that evidence on growth or decline of population is not always satisfactory and that it is difficult to establish whether development will change density significantly within the delimitation's life; it also says community-of-interest evidence was sometimes unscientific, and that magisterial and polling district boundaries do not always coincide.
Gaps in the evidence¶
The report counts only registered white voters, so it says nothing about the total or African, Coloured and Indian population whose rural 'depopulation' is only relative to the white electorate; the 1970 population census would have allowed testing of the depopulation and growth claims. The party submissions, maps and hearing evidence relied on are not reproduced, so the weight given to them cannot be audited, and growth projections for future loading are asserted rather than modelled. Polling-district level voter rolls exist in the Interior Department archives and could support independent replication.
Replicability: Data described but not public.