The United South African National Party is formed by a merger of the South African Party, a moderate faction of the pro-Afrikaner National Party and the remnants of the pro-British Unionist Party. It wins the 1938 election under the leadership of General (later Field Marshal) Jan Smuts and governs South Africa until 1948, when the hardline “purified” National Party takes power – and soon applies its policy of institutionalised racism: apartheid.