Pretoria East (Afrikaans: Pretoria-Oos) was a constituency in the Transvaal Province of South Africa, which existed from 1910 to 1966 and again from 1974 to 1994. It covered the eastern parts of Pretoria, the administrative capital of South Africa, and changed its makeup several times over the course of its existence. Throughout its existence it elected one member to the House of Assembly and one to the Transvaal Provincial Council.
When the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910, the electoral qualifications in use in each pre-existing colony were kept in place. In the Transvaal Colony, and its predecessor the South African Republic, the vote was restricted to white men, and as such, elections in the Transvaal Province were held on a whites-only franchise from the beginning. The franchise was also restricted by property and education qualifications until the 1933 general election, following the passage of the Women's Enfranchisement Act, 1930 and the Franchise Laws Amendment Act, 1931. From then on, the franchise was given to all white citizens aged 21 or over. Non-whites remained disenfranchised until the end of apartheid and the introduction of universal suffrage in 1994.[1]
As initially created, Pretoria East covered the eastern half of its namesake city, and was the only seat in Transvaal outside Johannesburg to be won by the opposition Unionist Party at the first general election in 1910 - this was despite the fact that the governing party candidate was Prime Minister Louis Botha. It changed hands only three times in its history: in 1921, when the Unionist Party merged with the South African Party, in 1934, when the SAP merged into the United Party, and in 1958, when it was won by the National Party. In its final boundaries, delineated in 1981, it covered the outer eastern suburbs of Pretoria, and like other such seats across South Africa, it was an NP stronghold.
