Bas de Gaay Fortman

Bastiaan "Bas" de Gaay Fortman (born 6 November 1937) is a retired Dutch politician and diplomat of the Political Party of Radicals (PPR) and later the GreenLeft (GL) party and economist.

After attending public elementary education, he attended the Christian Gymnasium in the Hague, specialising in sciences.

After graduating in 1956 he studied law and economics at the Free University of Amsterdam, receiving his Master of Law, and Doctorandus in Economy in 1963 cum laude.

In the last four years of his study he taught Civil Law, Commercial Law and Political Economics.

Following graduation he became a fellow at the Social Faculty of the Free University, and wrote his dissertation in Economics.

During this period he taught macro- and micro-economic theory.

In 1966, he received his Ph.D. in Economics for his dissertation "Theory of competition policy".

In 1967, De Gaay Fortman left Amsterdam to become a senior lector at the University of Zambia in Lusaka, where he was head of the Economic faculty.

Here he taught Economics of Rural Development, and Theory of the Economic Order.

He wrote two books about his residence in Zambia: After Mulungushi: The Economics of Zambian Humanism in 1967 and The Third World in Movement, a message from Zambia in 1972.

While in Zambia, De Gaay Fortman kept close tabs on the developments in Dutch politics.

De Gaay Fortman was a member of the Christian-democratic Anti-Revolutionary Party.

In 1967, he edited the book Christian-Radical, in which a new left-wing Christian faith was articulated.

In 1968, he was appointed Chairman of the Agricultural Prices and Marketing Committee, an advisory Body of the Zambian government.

In 1970, he joined a group of so-called "spijtstemmers" (English: "the Sorry Voters") or Americain Group (after restaurant Americain, where the group regularly met).

The group regretted that their party, ARP, joined a coalition with the liberal VVD instead of the social-democratic Partij van de Arbeid.

In 1970, he left the ARP to join the PPR, a Christian-radical party set up by former members of the KVP, who also regretted the Christian-democratic/liberal coalition.

In 1971, De Gaay Fortman returned to the Netherlands from Zambia for the election campaign of the PPR.

He was one of the two top candidates of the party.

In the elections the party got two seats in the House of Representatives, one of which was to be occupied by De Gaay-Fortman.

During his period as member of the House of Representatives, he was Professor Extraordinary of Economic Development at the Institute of Social Studies in the Hague.

After the election he became Shadow Minister for International Development in Den Uyl's Shadow cabinet.

He led the party in the 1972 elections, in which the PPR more than tripled its seats to seven.

De Gaay Fortman became the leader of the parliamentary party.

Between 1973 and 1975 he was vice-chair of the Defence Committee of the House of Representatives.

He seemed an atypical PPR-member, well-educated, upper-class, and with his affected speech.

De Gaay however, was very popular under young people.

In parliament he showed a keen interest in development cooperation.

Before 1977 elections the younger Ria Beckers succeeded De Gaay Fortman.

De Gaay Fortman became a member of the Senate.

He was professor of Political Economy at the Institute for Social Studies between 1977 and 2002.

He also held many positions in the World of Development Cooperation: most importantly he was president of NOVIB, the Dutch branch of Oxfam, between 1977 and 1984.

After 1981, however, his party was a one-man party.

In 1989, his party, the PPR merged with the PSP, CPN and the EVP to become GroenLinks.

De Gaay Fortman remained senator for this party.

During this period De Gaay Fortman returned to his passion, science.

In 1990, he gave up his seat in the House of Representatives to become delegate for the Reformed Church at the Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Canberra.

In 1990, he also founded Economists for Peace, with the late Jan Tinbergen.

He kept this position until 1991.

During this entire period he was the party's leader in the Senate.