Arie de Graaf

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Arie de Graaf (born 4 August 1947 in Arnhem) is a Dutch insurer, biologist, teacher and politician. He studied Dutch law at Utrecht University, earning a Master of Laws, and worked for a mutual insurance company from 1966 to 1976. He was a member of Arnhem’s municipal council from 1970 to 1976 and was elected to the House of Representatives for the Labour Party in 1976, serving until 1981. In Parliament he focused on corporate law, public finances and pension funds, and he opposed atomic weapons by voting against related parts of the defense budget. He earned the nickname “Arie de Vraag” for writing 357 questions to the government during his time in office. After leaving Parliament, he studied biology at Wageningen University and worked as a visiting scientist in plant taxonomy. From 1988 he taught at Inholland University of Applied Sciences. He described a plant species, Lagenandra dewitii, named in honor of botanist Hendrik de Wit.