Jaap Marais

Who was Jaap Marais?

Jaap Marais was a Member of Parliament in South Africa and the leader of the Afrikaner nationalist South African political party, the Herstigte Nasionale Party, from 1977 to his death in 2000.

Marais was the sixth of eight children. His father was one of the first fighters to enlist in the Anglo-Boer War against British colonial forces in South Africa. His mother was interned in the British concentration camp at Klerksdorp. Both parents survived the war.

Marais was active in Afrikaner nationalist politics from his twenties onwards. He was elected as a Member of Parliament for the ruling National Party in 1958 and served until 1969. The HNP was formed in 1969 by Albert Hertzog and a cabinet minister, Marais, and two other MPs, Louis Stofberg and Willie Marais. The founding of the party occurred three years after the assassination of Hendrik Verwoerd, when his successor BJ Vorster authorised the presence of Māori players and spectators during the tour of New Zealand rugby union team in South Africa in 1970. Marais considered this measure as a concession under pressure that would result in other concessions until the whole political order in South Africa, at the time based on racial and cultural differentiation, separate group areas and white rule, had been dismantled. Jaap Marais was thrown out of the Broederbond shortly after the HNP was formed, and all other identified HNP members or sympathisers were also purged from the Broederbond.