22-APR-1874 :- BIRTH OF Daniel François Malan, 5th Prime Minister of South Africa.

Daniel François Malan 
( 22 May 1874 – 7 February 1959) known as D. F. Malan, was the Prime Minister of South Africa from 1948 to 1954. He is seen as a champion of Afrikaner nationalism. His National Party government came to power on the program of apartheid and began its comprehensive implementation.

Malan's involvement in National Party politics began shortly after the NP's formation in 1914. In those years, political parties had affiliated newspapers that served as their mouthpiece. However, Nationalist-minded Afrikaners in the Cape had no such outlet and therefore, in 1915, decided to found De Burger, which later became known as Die Burger. They persuaded Malan to become the editor of the new newspaper and, as he was worried about the Afrikaners' political position in the aftermath of the 1914 Rebellion, he relinquished his position as a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church to accept the position. The Cape branch of the National Party was founded in 1915 and Malan was elected as its provincial leader. In 1918, he was elected to Parliament for the first time as MP for the Calvinia constituency. He held that seat until 1938, when he became the MP for Piketberg.

When the National Party came to power for the first time in 1924 under Prime Minister J. B. M. Hertzog, Malan was given the post of Minister of the Interior, Education and Public Health, which he held until 1933. In 1925, he was at the forefront of a campaign to replace Dutch with Afrikaans in the constitution and provide South Africa with its own national flag.

After the 1933 election, the United Party was formed out of the fusion of Hertzog's National Party and the rival South African Party of Jan Smuts. Malan strongly opposed this merger and, in 1934, he and 19 other MPs defected to form the Purified National Party, which he led for the next 14 years as the opposition.

Malan opposed South African participation in World War II. South Africa's participation in the conflict was unpopular among the Afrikaner population and in 1939 that led to a split in the governing United Party. The defectors united with the National Party, dramatically strengthening Malan's political position, and he consequently defeated Smuts and the United Party in the 1948 election.

The foundations of apartheid were firmly laid during Malan's six-and-a-half years as prime minister. Although the system was officially dismantled in 1994, the legacy of apartheid continues to have an impact in South Africa. Malan retired in 1954 at the age of 80, but in the succession-battle that accompanied his retirement, his anointed heirs, N. C. Havenga and T. E. Donges, were defeated and Malan was succeeded by J. G. Strijdom.

Malan died in 1959 at Môrewag, his home in Stellenbosch. His book, Afrikaner "Afrikaner nationalism and my experiences on the road to it" (Volkseenheid en my ervaringe op die pad daarheen), was published in the same year. A collection of his writings and documents is housed in the Document Centre at the University of Stellenbosch's J.S. Gericke library.