On May 31st, the Union of South Africa was established. The union was between Transvaal, the Orange Free State, the Cape Colony and Natal. In the first elections held, the South African Party led by Louis Botha defeated the Unionist Party..

On May 31st, 1910, Union of South Africa was established. This new entity marked the culmination of years of British imperial efforts to unify its dominions and colonies in southern Africa, bringing together the formerly separate entities of the Transvaal, the Orange Free State, the Cape Colony, and Natal into a single dominion within the British Empire.

The backdrop to this union was fraught with tensions. The two Anglo-Boer wars, fought between the British Empire and the two independent Boer republics, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, had left deep scars. The wars were not just about territory, but also a reflection of cultural, economic, and political differences between the British and the Boers, who were descendants of Dutch settlers known as Afrikaners.

Following the end of the second Anglo-Boer war in 1902, the British were in control of the entire region, but there was an understanding of the need for political reconciliation. The Union of South Africa was, in many ways, an attempt to forge a new national identity while maintaining ties to the British Crown.

In the first elections of the newly established Union in 1910, the political landscape was dominated by two major parties: the South African Party (SAP) and the Unionist Party. The SAP, led by Louis Botha, was primarily representative of the Afrikaner interest, although it pursued a policy of reconciliation between Afrikaners and English-speaking whites. In contrast, the Unionist Party, which had its roots in the British colonial establishment, was more pro-British.

Botha's South African Party victory signified the beginning of Afrikaner political dominance in the union. However, while the union did bring political unity to white South Africans, the majority black population was largely excluded from political power. It would be many decades, marked by apartheid and resistance, before South Africa would truly begin the journey toward broader representation and equality.