House of Delegates (South Africa)

The House of Delegates (Afrikaans: Raad van Afgevaardigdes) was a body in the Tricameral Parliament of South Africa which existed from 1984 to 1994. It was reserved for Indian South Africans. The body was elected twice; in 1984 and 1989. It was the second time in South Africa's history that Indians had ever had any sort of representation at the national level, the first being the South African Indian Council. It was originally to be called the Chamber of Deputies.[1]

House of Delegates Raad van Afgevaardigdes
Type
Type	Indian representative house
History
Established	1984
Disbanded	1994
Preceded by	South African Indian Council
Succeeded by	National Assembly
Elections
Voting system	First-past-the-post
Last election	6 September 1989
Meeting place
Marks Building Cape Town Cape Province, South Africa

The debating chamber of the House of Delegates located in Marks Building, a new building that was located across the road from Houses of Parliament, Cape Town. [2] The executive arm of the House of Delegates was a Ministers' Council, led by a Chairman. The civil service that dealt with Indian "own affairs" (including education, health and welfare, local government, housing and agriculture)[3] was called Administration: House of Delegates, and was based in Durban.[3][4][5]

Elections

Electoral turnouts for elections to the House of Delegates were poor.[5]

Election results:

Election	Date	Total seats	National People's Party	Solidarity	Others	Indep.
1984 election	28 August 1984	40	18	17	1	4
1989 election	6 September 1989	40	8	16	10	6

Leadership

The following served as Chairman of the Minister's Council of the House of Delegates: [6]

• Amichand Rajbansi (September 1984 - 31 December 1988
• Kassipershad Ramduth (1 January 1989 - 21 March 1989) (acting)
• Jayaram Narainsamy Reddy (21 March 1989 - February 1993)
• Bhadra Galu Ranchod (February 1993 - March 1994)

References

1. South Africa and the Consociational Option: A Constitutional Analysis, Laurence Boulle, Juta, 1984, page 152
2. Race Relations Survey, South African Institute of Race Relations, page 130
3. Congress, The Library of. "LC Linked Data Service: Authorities and Vocabularies (Library of Congress)". id.loc.gov.
4. Willem Johannes Schurink (1992). Victimization: Nature and Trends. HSRC Press. pp. 192–. ISBN 978-0-7969-1258-9.
5. Behrens, Gerd (October 1989). THE OTHER TWO HOUSES The first five years of the Houses of Representatives and Delegates (PDF) (PhD). Cape Town: University of Cape Town. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 July 2020.
6. https://www.worldstatesmen.org/South_Africa.html

• SOUTH AFRICA: parliamentary elections House of Delegates, 1989