Political Career
De Beer was first elected to the House of Assembly in 1953 as an MP for the opposition United Party. On the party's left wing, he and fellow MP Helen Suzman, Colin Eglin, Ray Swart, Harry Lawrence and Dr Jan Steytler resigned from the party after its national congress voted against returning any further land to the black majority for their occupation and use. He and the other liberal MPs formed the new Progressive Party in 1959. De Beer lost his seat in the 1961 general election and joined an advertising agency before moving on the Anglo-American. In the 1977 general election, he was returned to Parliament as an MP for what had become the Progressive Federal Party which had been formed that year through a merger of the Progressive Party and various other liberal groups of MPs. He became the PFP's leader in August 1988 and, with Denis Worrall and Wynand Malan was a co-leader of the new Democratic Party when it formed in 1989.
Following the DP's defeat in the first post-apartheid election of 1994, De Beer resigned as party leader. He was appointed South African ambassador to the Netherlands by Nelson Mandela.
De Beer was for many years a director of the Anglo American PLC/De Beers diamond mining conglomerate.
Read more about this topic: Zach De Beer
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