With the National Party governing South Africa from 4 June 1948 until 9 May 1994, the country for the bulk of this time was only a de jure or partial democracy, as from 1958 onwards non-white people were barred from voting.

In 1990, it began to style itself as simply a South African civic nationalist party, and after the fall of apartheid in 1994, attempted to become a moderate conservative one.

It resulted in policies of granting concessions to the non-White population while still retaining the apartheid system, such as the creation of Bantustans that were autonomous self-governing Black homelands (criticised for several of them being broken up into unconnected pieces and that they were still dominated by the White minority South African government), removing legal prohibitions on interracial marriage, and legalising certain non-White and multiracial political parties (excluding the very popular African National Congress (ANC), which the government still viewed as a terrorist organisation).

F. W. de Klerk declared in February 1990 the decision to permit the release of Mandela from prison and ending South Africa's ban on the ANC and other anti-apartheid movements.

Hertzog and his followers in the Orange Free State province subsequently moved to establish the National Party to oppose the government by advocating a "two-stream" policy of equal rights for the English and Afrikaner communities.

Afrikaner nationalists in the Transvaal and Cape provinces soon followed suit, so that three distinct provincial NP organisations were in existence in time for the 1915 general elections.

The Purified National Party used opposition to South African participation in World War II to stir up anti-British feelings amongst Afrikaners.

In the place of the four parliamentary seats, a partially elected body was set up to advise the government in an amendment to the Separate Representation of Voters Act.

[citation needed] When the NP came to power in 1948 (making it the first all-Afrikaner cabinet since 1910), there were two uppermost priorities that it was determined to fulfil: Between 1948 and 1961, Prime Ministers D. F. Malan, J. G. Strijdom and Hendrik Verwoerd all worked very hard for the latter, implementing a battery of policies and changes in a bid to increase the country's autonomy.

Malan appealed to many rural voters due to his agricultural policy, meaning black workers relied on white farmers for work, fuelling his quest for a segregated nation.

However, with a small seating majority and a total vote-tally minority, it was impossible for now for Malan and his ardently republican Nats to bring about a republic constitutionally.

In his term of office, from 1948 to 1954, Malan took several steps to break ties with the UK: The 1953 ballot votes saw the NP fortify its position considerably, winning comfortably but still falling well short of the clear majority it sought: it had 94 seats in parliament to the UP's 57 and the Labour Party's five.

[citation needed] To gain the support of the English-identified population of South Africa, Verwoerd appointed several English speakers to his cabinet.

In the aftermath of the World War II, former British colonies in Africa and Asia were gaining independence and publicising the ills of apartheid.

The Commonwealth had earlier declined to predict how republican status would affect South Africa's membership; it did not want to be seen meddling in its members' domestic affairs.

His decision was received with regret by the Prime Ministers of the UK, Australia and New Zealand but was met with obvious approval from South Africa's critics.

They believed that South Africa and the United Kingdom had absolutely nothing in common, and even UP leader Sir De Villiers Graaff praised Verwoerd for his handling of the situation.

[citation needed] Although White inhabitants were generally happy with the republic, united in their support of Verwoerd, the Blacks defiantly rejected the move.

By the 1980s, however, in reaction to the "verligte" reforms of P. W. Botha, the majority of Afrikaners drifted to the Conservative Party of Andries Treurnicht, who called for a return to the traditional policies of the NP.

Verligtes took a somewhat more moderate stance towards racial issues, primarily from a pragmatic standpoint over fears of international scrutiny should reforms fail to be made.

[12] In addition to the question of apartheid, the two factions were divided over such issues as immigration, language, racially-mixed sporting teams, and engagement with Black African states.

In 1969, members of the "verkrampte" faction including Albert Hertzog and Jaap Marais, formed the Herstigte Nasionale Party, which claimed to be the true upholder of pure Verwoerdian apartheid ideology and continues to exist today.

While it never had much electoral success, it attracted sufficient numbers to erode support for the government at crucial points, although not to the extent that the Conservative Party would do.

Botha also amended the constitution to grant a measure of political representation to Coloureds and Indians by creating separate parliamentary chambers in which they had control of their "own affairs".

However, Botha and the NP refused to budge on the central issue of granting meaningful political rights to Black South Africans, who remained unrepresented even after the reforms.

[citation needed] While Botha's reforms did not even begin to meet the opposition's demands, they sufficiently alarmed a segment of his own party to engender a second split.

[citation needed] In the midst of rising political instability, growing economic problems and diplomatic isolation, Botha resigned as NP leader, and subsequently as State President in 1989.

Late in 1989, the NP won the most bitterly contested election in decades, pledging to negotiate an end to the very apartheid system that it had established.

Despite this, it remained uncertain about its future direction, and was continually outperformed in parliament by the much smaller Democratic Party (DP), which provided a more forceful and principled opposition stance.

The relaunched National Party of 2008 pushed for a non-racial democratic South Africa based on federal principles and the legacy of F. W. de Klerk.