Prime Minister of New Zealand ministerial power; in 1912 Thomas Mackenzie was the last prime minister to lose power through an unsuccessful confidence motion in the House of Representatives. One change brought about by the First World War was direct participation in governing the British Empire. Previously, New Zealand prime ministers had attended occasional colonial and imperial conferences, but they otherwise communicated with London through the governor (a position then appointed by the British government). In 1917, however, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George offered the New Zealand prime minister a seat in the Imperial War Cabinet, the British Empire's wartime coordinating body. In 1919,
Prime Minister of South Africa He was the country's leading political figure and "de facto" chief executive, with powers similar to those of his British counterpart. The position of Prime Minister was abolished in 1984, when the State President was given executive powers after a new constitution was adopted—effectively merging the powers of the Prime Minister with those of the State President. The last Prime Minister, P. W. Botha, became the first executive State President after the constitutional reform. In post-Apartheid South Africa, the Inkatha Freedom Party has called for a return to a Westminster-style split executive with a Prime Minister as the actual head