De Villiers Graaff

Sir David Pieter De Villiers, 2nd Baronet Graaff of Tygerberg (born 8 December 1913 in Cape Town, † October 4, 1999 ) was a South African politician of the United Party.

Life

De Villiers Graaff, son of businessman and politician David Pieter de Villiers Graaff, 1931, after the death of his father succeeded him as 2nd Baronet Graaff of Tygerberg. In 1948, he was first elected as a candidate of the United Party (UP) in the constituency Hottentots Holland to the deputies of the National Assembly. In the elections, led by Prime Minister Jan Christiaan Smuts party lost its majority to the conservative National Party, who then introduced the new Prime Minister Daniel François Malan with. This began with the government takeover in 1948, the systematic policy of apartheid in South Africa.

In 1956, he became the new chairman of the United Party as successor to Jacobus Gideon Nel Strauss, who in 1950 was Smuts followed as party chairman. The post of party chairman held De Villiers Graaff to 1977 and as such led the opposition to the questions put by the National Party government of Prime Minister John Gerhardus Strijdom, Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd and John Vorster Balthazar. During this time, the UP said while against apartheid as a system, however, held fast to the rule of the white minority. In the late 1960s, the party gained support among the opponents of the NP.

In 1977, the UP was disbanded and re-founded as the New Republic Party ( Nieuwe Republiek Party ). Graaff was for a short time their transition chairman before he resigned and stepped down from his position even in the National Assembly.

Successor of De Villiers Graaff, who was able to see the end of apartheid in 1994, when his son was Baronet Sir David Graaff, 3rd Baronet ( b. 1940 ).