But he left the university before completing a degree in order to begin a full-time political career, a decision made when he was only 20 years old.
The rural Orange Free State was among the most Afrikaans-speaking regions of South Africa, and for many decades it was a bastion of extreme political conservatism among whites. Thus, it was not surprising that Botha affiliated in 1936 with the right-wing, ethnically-oriented National party, though at the time this was still a minority party in South African white politics. Botha was initially appointed by the party leader D. F. Malan as a political organizer for the Nationalists in neighboring Cape Province. Later he was made responsible for national publicity during the campaign leading up to the May 1948 general election, an election which the Nationalists unexpectedly won.
In the 1948 election Botha won a seat in the House of Assembly, the lower chamber of South Africa's bicameral parliament at the time, for the George constituency in the southern Cape Province. He would hold this seat for the next 36 years, becoming the assembly's longest serving member. Also in 1948 Botha was made chief secretary of the National party in the Cape Province, a post he held for a decade.
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