Zach de Beer

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Zach de Beer (1960)

Zacharias Johannes "Zach" de Beer (born October 11, 1928 in Cape Town ; † May 27, 1999 there ; occasionally also Zac de Beer ) was a South African politician, doctor and businessman.

Life

Zach de Beer’s parents had Dutch roots. He attended Bishop's Diocesan College, a boys' school in the Cape Town district of Rondebosch , studied medicine and obtained an MB ChB degree from the University of Cape Town in 1951 . In 1952 he completed an internship at the Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town. In the general election in 1953 he was elected as the youngest member of the National Assembly for the opposition United Party . In the 1958 elections, he retained his seat in parliament. In 1959, the party's liberal wing split off after the party leadership refused to allow any further land sales to blacks. De Beer and others founded the Progressive Party (PP). In the 1961 elections, de Beer lost his seat in parliament and from then on worked for an advertising agency. He later worked for the mining company Anglo American in a management position and from 1972 to 1974 as chairman of Anglo American Central Africa in Zambia . Until 1988 he remained a director on the board of Anglo American.

In 1977 de Beer was re-elected to parliament for the successor to the PP, the Progressive Federal Party (PFP). In August 1988 he was elected as the successor to Colin Eglin as party chairman. In 1989 the PFP merged with other liberal groups to form the Democratic Party (DP). De Beer became chairman of the DP alongside Denis Worrall and Wynand Malan. In the 1994 elections , in which all citizens could take part for the first time, the DP received just 1.7 percent of the vote, so that de Beer resigned as chairman. President Nelson Mandela then appointed him Ambassador of South Africa to the Netherlands . For health reasons he had to give up the office and return to South Africa. He died of a stroke .

De Beer was married twice and had three children.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ de Beer bei who's who South Africa ( Memento from October 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
  2. ↑ a b c d portrait at sahistory.org.za (English), accessed on July 7, 2013
  3. ^ Obituary on the Independent's homepage , accessed on July 7, 2013
personal data
SURNAME De Beer, Zach
ALTERNATIVE NAMES De Beer, Zacharias Johannes (full name); De Beer, Zac (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African politician, doctor and businessman
DATE OF BIRTH October 11, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Cape Town
DATE OF DEATH May 27, 1999
Place of death Cape Town