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The United National South West Party (Afrikaans: Verenigde Nasionale Suidwes Party, ‹See Tfd›German: Vereinigte Nationale Südwestpartei) was a political party in South West Africa, the local counterpart of the South African United Party but founded eight years earlier and merged into the latter in 1971. It was formed through a merger of National Party of South West Africa and the South West Party, in order to counter the influence of the German League in South West Africa. The first congress of UNSWP was held in Windhoek on 1–2 April 1927.
The UNSWP favoured incorporation of South West Africa into South Africa, and won elections to the Legislative Assembly elections in 1929, 1934, 1940 and 1945.[1]
With the coming of the National Party of South West Africa in the late 1930s, some Afrikaners switched loyalties to the new party. Meanwhile, after 1939 the policy of the UNSWP tended to follow Gen. Smuts instead of Gen. Hertzog, in part because of the fear of a new German interest in the territory. It continued to control the Legislative Assembly until 1950, at which point it held fifteen of the eighteen seats. But the National Party had won control in South Africa in 1948, and in 1950 elections in Namibia the National Party won sixteen seats while the UNSWP retained only two (which it lost in 1966). However, they continued running for the six local seats in the House of Assembly of South Africa in five South African general elections, in 1953, 1958, 1961, 1966, and 1970. Despite good organization and the support of over 40% of South-West Africans in the first three of those elections, the party never succeeded in sending a single representative to the House of Assembly.
The main publication of UNSWP was the newspaper Die Suidwes Afrikaner.
- ^ Elections in Namibia African Elections Database