It was founded by Lucas Mangope, leader of the Bophuthatswana bantustan in 1997, as a successor to the Tswana National Party,[1] and led by him for the first fifteen years of its existence.

Mfundisi was succeeded by the current President Modiri Desmond Sehume[5] who was elected in the Federal Congress in 2019.

[citation needed] Most of the party's support comes from the North West province (where the old Bophuthatswana was located), and it has very little presence elsewhere in the country.

The party's mission statement stresses the need for Christian values, non-racial democracy, and government inducements for personal self-reliance, while the 2004 manifesto attacked the ANC for, among other things, its alleged softness on crime, nepotism, and neglect of South African infrastructure.

[7] A 2003 survey conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council found that 85% of UCDP voters were female.