Born in Boston in 1930 of Jamaican parents of Syrian and Scottish origin, Seaga was educated at Wolmer's Boys School in Kingston and at Harvard University. Seaga and Manley continued the traditional JLP-PNP leadership rivalry in the 1970s, but on a far more bitter and intense level than had Bustamante and Norman Manley. In 1974 Seaga succeeded Shearer as JLP leader and began playing an active role as leader of the opposition (1974-80). By the 1970s, most Jamaican leaders preferred life-styles that identified them more closely with local culture. Prior to independence, most top leaders had Anglo-European life-styles and disdained many aspects of Jamaican and West Indian culture.
Manley's populist policies gave impetus to a shift, begun with independence, of many more dark-skinned middle-class Jamaicans moving upward into political and social prominence, taking over political and civil service positions from the old white elite. In addition to redirecting the PNP along these lines, Manley began building a mass party, with emphasis on political mobilization. Manley's PNP did not publicly announce its resurrected goal of "democratic socialism" until the fall of 1974, on the occasion of a state visit to Jamaica by Tanzania's socialist president Julius K. Thus, for the first time, political divisions within Jamaica reflected the East-West conflict. Manley's informal dress and the PNP's imaginative use of two features of Rastafarian culture - creole dialect and reggae music - in the 1972 campaign were designed to dispel fears of elitism and woo the votes of those who had disparaged Norman Manley's facility with the English language.ĭuring Michael Manley's terms as prime minister (1972-80), the PNP aligned itself with socialist and "anti-imperialist" forces throughout the world.
Manley also had appeared in public with an ornamental "rod of correction" reputedly given him by Haile Selassie. During the 1972 election campaign, Manley had tried to change his party's image by evoking the memory of Marcus Garvey, using symbols appealing to the Rastafarians, and by associating with their leader, Claudius Henry. Michael Manley's PNP won the 1972 election on a Rastafarian influenced swing vote of 8 percent. Manley, who represented Central Kingston, won but also from members of the middle and business classes disenchanted with the Shearer government. Eloquent, tall, and charismatic, he defeated Shearer impressively in the February 1972 election, winning 56 percent of the popular vote, which gave the PNP 36 of the 53 seats in the House of Representatives. Michael Manley, who had been educated at Jamaica College and the London School of Economics, worked as a journalist and trade unionist (1952-72). After Manley died, his son Michael, a Third World-oriented social democrat, succeeded him as PNP leader and began to revive the party's socialist heritage. Beginning in 1970, the JLP's identification with domestic and foreign business interests became increasingly evident. The Shearer government was known for its weak management, factionalism, and corruption.Īfter Norman Manley's death in 1969, the JLP and PNP evolved along increasingly divergent lines. He died suddenly two months later, however, and Hugh Shearer, the BITU president, succeeded him on April 12. Donald Sangster took over as acting prime minister and later became prime minister as a result of the narrow JLP victory in the February 1967 elections. A review of political dynamics in independent Jamaica can begin in 1965, when illness forced Prime Minister Bustamante, one of Jamaica's two founding fathers, to resign from politics.
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