David Pieter De Villiers Graaff (Junior)

David Pieter De Villiers Graaff (Junior), 1960

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

Life

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

In 1956 he became the new chairman of the United Party and thus successor to Jacobus Gideon Nel Strauss , who had succeeded Smuts as party chairman in 1950. De Villiers Graaff held the office of party chairman until 1977 and, as such, led the opposition to the governments of Prime Ministers Johannes Gerhardus Strijdom , Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd and Balthazar Johannes Vorster . During this time the UP spoke out against apartheid as a system, but stuck to the rule of the white minority. In the late 1960s, the party gained support from opponents of the NP.

In 1977 the UP was dissolved and re-established as the New Republic Party (Nieuwe Republiek Party) . Graaff was their interim chairman for a short time before he resigned and also resigned his seat in the National Assembly.

Successor of De Villiers Graaff, who could still see the end of apartheid policy in 1994, as a baronet was his son Sir David Graaff, 3rd baronet (* 1940).

Web links

• rulers.org
• Sir De Villiers Graaff, 2nd Bt. On thepeerage.com