Constitution Act of 1983. Opposition The general election for the House of Representatives and House of Delegates in August 1984 ran into heavy opposition. The United Democratic Front (UDF) was formed by a number of (mainly pro-African National Congress) community organisations and trade unions to oppose and boycott these elections. Nevertheless, although the election boycott was widely supported, the new constitution did come into effect, and the general election was held. The Indian and Coloured chambers of the Tricameral Parliament suffered from a crisis of credibility, with election boycotts leading to notoriously low turnouts (the 1984 elections achieved only a 16.2% turnout). Elected officials in these houses were sometimes scorned for participating in the apartheid system. In 1987, Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, the leader of the opposition in the White chamber, quit parliamentary politics, as he saw it as increasingly irrelevant to South Africa's political future. Structure Chambers The parliament had three separately elected chambers: A 178-member (White) House of Assembly (), which was in effect the existing single-chamber Parliament. An 85-member (Coloured) House of Representatives () A 45-member (Indian) House of Delegates (). Under the original proposals, the White chamber was to be known as the "Assembly", while the Indian chamber was to be known as the "Chamber of Deputies". The Senate was abolished with effect from 1981. Each of these three chambers had power over the "own affairs" (as it was termed) of the population group it represented, such as education, social welfare, housing, local government, arts, culture and recreation. "General affairs", such as defence, finance, foreign policy, justice, law and order, transport, commerce and industry, manpower, internal affairs, and agriculture required approval from all three chambers, after consideration by joint standing committees. Leadership The government was led by a State President. The office of Prime Minister was abolished, and its powers were de facto transferred to the State President, which was made an executive post with very broad executive powers. He was to be selected from among the members of the Tricameral Parliament by an 88-member electoral college composed of 50 Whites, 25 Coloureds and 13 Indians, each group chosen by its respective house in parliament, and held office for the parliament's duration—in practice, five years. The State President appointed a Cabinet of ministers who would be in charge of "general affairs" as well as Ministers' Councils for each of the three parliamentary chambers to manage their