to succeed her. De Graaf won the leadership election defeating fellow frontbencher Roger van Boxtel and was elected as Leader and Parliamentary leader, taking office on 30 May 1998. For the election of 2002 De Graaf served as the Lijsttrekker (top candidate). The Democrats 66 suffered a big loss, losing 7 seats and fell back as the seventh largest party and now had 7 seats in the House of Representatives. For the election of 2003 De Graaf served for a second time as Lijsttrekker. The Democrats 66 suffered another loss, losing 1 seat and now had 6 seats in the House of Representatives. On 22 January 2003 De Graaf announced he was stepping down as Leader and Parliamentary leader taking responsibility for the defeat but continued to serve in the House of Representatives as a frontbencher chairing the parliamentary committee for Kingdom Relations. Following the cabinet formation of 2003 De Graaf was appointed as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Governmental Reform and Kingdom Relations in the Cabinet Balkenende II, taking office on 27 May 2003. On 23 March 2005 De Graaf resigned after a proposed constitutional reform on elected-mayors was rejected by the Senate. De Graaf semi-retired from active politics and became active in the public sector and occupied numerous seats as a nonprofit director on several supervisory boards (Centre for Parliamentary History, Consumers' League and the Anne Vondeling prize) and served on several state commissions and councils on behalf of the government (Public Pension Funds APB, De Koning Commission, National Committee for 4 and 5 May, Netherlands Film Fund and the Advisory Council for Spatial Planning). De Graaf also worked as a sport administrator for the Royal Dutch Football Association. De Graaf also served as a professor of Ethics for the Royal Marechaussee at the Royal Military Academy from July 2005 until September 2010. In December 2006 De Graaf was nominated as Mayor of Nijmegen, taking office on 8 January 2007. In January 2012 De Graaf was nominated as Chairman of the Executive Board of the Universities of Applied Sciences association, he resigned as Mayor the same day he was installed Chairman from serving from 1 February 2012 until 1 November 2018. De Graaf was elected as a Member of the Senate after the Senate election of 2011, taking office on 7 June 2011 serving as a frontbencher chairing the parliamentary committee for Kingdom Relations and spokesperson for