Talk:1948 South African general election

South Africa Top‑importance

	South Africa portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject South Africa, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of South Africa on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.South AfricaWikipedia:WikiProject South AfricaTemplate:WikiProject South AfricaSouth Africa articles
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Elections and Referendums

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Elections and Referendums, an ongoing effort to improve the quality of, expand upon and create new articles relating to elections, electoral reform and other aspects of democratic decision-making. For more information, visit our project page.Elections and ReferendumsWikipedia:WikiProject Elections and ReferendumsTemplate:WikiProject Elections and ReferendumsElections and Referendums articles

Slogans[edit]

I have removed an edit listed NP slogans in the article intro (the slogans listed were: 'die kaffer op sy plek' and 'koelies gaan huis toe'. My feeling is that this sort of indepth information is not suitable for an intro which is supposed to give a brief overview. Furthermore, I do not think it appropriate to include the slogans in the main body, given that the NP's attitude towards non-Europeans is made abundantly clear by the rest of the content of the article. The sentiment of these slogans (essentailly, that Black South Africans needed to be kept in their place and that Indian SAns needed to be expatriated) is subsumed under the slogan 'Swart Gevaar' (Black Peril) which was much more widely used and is much more famous than the other two slogans under discussion. In short, I removed the two slogans to avoid redundancy.Eccohomo (talk) 08:08, 1 July 2010 (UTC)Eccohomo[reply]

You removed useful slogans, now reverted three times. If someone reverts you, why do you insist on removing sourced text?--Chris (クリス • フィッチュ) (talk) 13:56, 5 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that these slogans are useful. I dispute that they should be placed in the Introductory section which is supposed to give a broad overview of the topic without going into too many specifics. You may be able to make a case for including them in the main body, though my point about the sentiment of the slogans being subsumed under the general heading 'Swart Gevaar' still stands. Articles on other election campaigns conducted in other countries don't exhaustively list every slogan used, so I'm not really sure that this one shouldEccohomo (talk) 09:57, 7 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed these slogans from the Intro and included them in the main body. You will see I have re-translated them to give a more idomatic and natural rendering and have formatted the style of this text to make it consistent with that used elsewhere.Eccohomo (talk) 10:10, 7 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's acceptable, I took out "gloss" as unnecessary, parenthesis and quotes make it clear to the reader. Thanks.--Chris (クリス • フィッチュ) (talk) 04:42, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Coloured voters[edit]

I removed a paragraph which stated that Coloured voters boycotted this election in large numbers. I could find no evidence for this assertion; indeed, the paragraph was not referenced.Eccohomo (talk) 08:08, 1 July 2010 (UTC)Eccohomo[reply]

In accordance withe the citation neede policiy of WP ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed ), I have moved this material to the talk page:

"Many Coloured voters boycotted the election in protest at their restriced franchise and other discrimination ^{[citation needed]}: this may also have helped the NP victory ^{[citation needed]}, leading to government efforts first to give Coloureds separate and reduced representation (by Whites) and later to remove their votes altogether.^{[citation needed]}"

I have done so for two reasons: i)Despite numerous and extensive searches, i have been unable to find any evinced for the view that Coloured voters boycotted the polls in significant numbers. Data relating to this election seems quite scarce, and I don't know of any extant record which explicitly states the numbers of each race group that voted.

ii)The statement that Coloured voters stayed away from the polls strikes me as incredible (as in, hard to believe). Given that the NP was avowedly dedicated to depriving non-Europeans of rights,and the UP had attempted over the years to protect Coloured rights, it makes sense to argue that the Coloured voters had compelling reasons to show up to vote, and to vote for the UP.

Having said all this, I would feel happy to move this paragraph back to the page if evidence for this statement was forthcoming

Assertion[edit]

" the UP supported vague notions of slowly integrating the different racial groups within South Africa." - That's not true, in fact that's NP propaganda. On the race question NP/UP were essentially in agreement. I'd like to see prove of NP gerrymandering as well. They weren't in position to actually do that, while the subdivision of voting districts may actually have benefited them. --41.246.14.49 (talk) 01:02, 22 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]