Apartheid’s founding government won only a slim 1948 electoral margin

Evidence

At a time when other African colonial societies were encountering the first shock waves of decolonization, white South Africans voted in a government which promised to contain the threat of black militancy, heighten the physical, social, and cultural distance between races, and preserve the principle of racial purity. In 1948, the National Party’s margin of victory was slight; indeed, it was only in 1961 that the party secured a majority of election votes. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 552

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how did a party with a slim voter margin secure enough institutional grip to enact the full apartheid legislative program within years?