1981 South African general election

South African general election, 1981

29 April 1981 (1981-04-29)
All 165 elected seats in the House of Assembly
First party Second party   Leader P. W. Botha Frederik van Zyl Slabbert Party National Progressive Last election 134 17 Seats won 131 26 Seat change 3 9
Prime Minister before election P. W. Botha National Elected Prime Minister P. W. Botha National

During the 1981 South African general election, held on 29 April of that year, the National Party, under the leadership of P. W. Botha since 1978, achieved another landslide victory, winning 131 of 165 seats in the House of Assembly, which had become the sole legislative chamber following the abolition of the Senate that year. Meanwhile the Progressive Federal Party - led since 1979 by Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, an Afrikaner - increased its representation in parliament to 26 seats, thus consolidating its position as the official opposition.

The Herstigte Nasionale Party (HNP), which represented the right-wing conservative Afrikaners, received 14.1% of the popular vote but did not gain any seats in Parliament.

Results

	Party	Leader	Votes	%	Elected seats	Other seats1	Total seats
	National Party	P.W. Botha	777 558	56.96%	131	12	143
	Progressive Federal Party	Frederik van Zyl Slabbert	265 297	19.44%	26	1	27
	Herstigte Nasionale Party	Jaap Marais	192 304	14.09%	0	0	0
	New Republic Party	Vause Raw	106 764	7.82%	8	0	8
	Others		23 044	1.68%	0	0	0
	Total			100.00%	165	13	178

¹ Nominated seats partially based on the proportion of elected seats.