What I've got tentatively sketched in is the National Party + Afrikaner Party getting a narrow majority in Parliament (from a minority of ballots cast) - pretty much the OTL 1948 result. That's something I'm going to have a think about in the light of what has been put up in this thread, but one thing I'm quite keen to look at with this timeline is the interaction between a much more confident and assertive India and an Apartheid South Africa. That's going to have a major impact elsewhere - the UK for instance will IMHO not be able to ignore what India wants like it did in OTL, and I think is interesting to look at.
Yeah I'd gotten the sense that that was the case - it's fairly plausible that the Nats might be able to win in 1948 with the changes anyway. They'd just need to campaign on the right issues, with a UP that isn't responsive enough to stop it - the sentiments supporting Apartheid were already there amongst a wide portion of the white population, and our buddy Gerry Mander would ensure that they remain in power after that point, plus the additional support they got after following through with Apartheid laws.
As an aside, some additional changes that would probably occur under the Nats in this timeline
> You probably see a Liberal party under Jan Hofmeyr starting much earlier in the course of Apartheid in a serious manner, which will do well to provide legitimacy for the anti-Apartheid movement - I'd also expect our friend Hoffie here to be a major player in the Congress of Democrats, which means the Congress Alliance will be richer for his presence. He's really one of those people who could conceivably survive who were just really nice, and deserve a shot, to paraphrase what you said earlier. His credentials as a being pro-equality should also see greater integration between parliamentary resistance under the Liberals, and civil society resistance under the various Congresses. In addition to this, Hofmeyr also had a reputation for being very straight shooting, and openly and loudly criticised policies he thought were not morally or pragmatically correct - he'd be a proto-Suzman in parliament, which should be quite fun
> Greater integration should see the equivalent of van Zyl Slabbert visiting the ANC in Lusaka happen much earlier after they're forced into exile - possibly within a few years, if any of the Liberal Party's MPs develop personal friendships with the leaders of civil society resistance beforehand, and definitely in greater numbers. This is going to be a thorn in the side of the government - liberal MPs here have had a fine history of flaunting parliamentary privilege, especially people like Helen Suzman, and greater kinship with civil resistance should open more opportunities for that.
> As a quick aside, please, we need at least one of Suzman's insults in a post - they were brilliant. Something along the lines of her telling the PM to go to a township "in heavy disguise as a human being" would satisfy me.
> Politically, the ANC is going to take a
very different path after its banning. It's still going to be socialist/social democrat, but the primary political influence being from the Congress in India means they're probably going to end up having much more in common with something like the Labour Party as their signposted ideology than anything further to the left. A lot of the ANC's swing towards more radical policy standings came after they were influenced by the governments in power to the North of SA, most of which were receiving generous Soviet support. The ANC itself also sought and received material aid from the USSR - without that, it'll be a much more moderate party, making it far more palatable to white liberals, and easier to sell abroad as the right side to places like the US and Europe. That should also have helpful effects with the fall of Apartheid some time in the 70s or early 80s - with greater links to the existing political establishment and a backer interested in mentoring them as a party rather than an insurgent group, they'll be vastly better-prepared to enter parliamentary politics - something I fully expect they'll win, given the immense support they'd receive. The Liberals will probably also do better than the OTL DA has managed to, since they'll have a bit more legitimacy as a major player in the Struggle.
> This is all going to have very interesting effects on what goes on in Rhodesia once things start spiralling there - up to and including an Apartheid SA military intervention, or even a post-Apartheid intervention backed by the Brits and Indians - South Africa's also going to be more prosperous, sooner, so we'd be in a better position to play caretaker over Southern Africa, albeit with states with less links to our ruling party. The links will still be there though!
) and if not, what are the differences.
