Charles Robberts Swart National T. E. Dönges † Tom Naudé as acting president National The 1967 South African presidential election pitted Theophilus Ebenhaezer Dönges against Major Pieter Voltelyn Graham van der Byl.

On January 19, 1967, the caucus of parliamentarians from the National Party proposed Dönges to succeed Charles Robberts Swart as State President.

In the group, he won against Jan de Klerk and against Jacobus Johannes Fouché, who was elected the South African head of state a year later in 1968.

[1] In May 1967, Dönges suffered a brain hemorrhage that plunged him into a coma, three weeks before his swearing in and the inauguration of his presidential term, which was to take place on June 1.

He died on January 10, 1968, at the Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, without ever having regained consciousness and without being able to exercise the office of State President.