biography
| name: |
Strijdom, Johannes Gerhardus
|
| |
also spelled Strydom
|
pronunciation:
[striydom]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1893–1958)
|
| biography:
| South African statesman and prime minister (1954–8), born in Willowmore, S South Africa. He studied at Victoria College, Stellenbosch, and Pretoria University, and after a start in the civil service, took up law practice in the Transvaal. Elected MP for Waterberg in 1929, he became leader of the extremists in the National Party. His two main political ends were the setting up of an Afrikaner Republic outside the Commonwealth, and the policy of apartheid, which he helped introduce when he was premier by altering the balance of the Senate (1955) to ensure the necessary majority vote for his policies. |
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