Jamaica - Politics - 1980s
The 1980 election campaign, Jamaica's most bitter and violent, was waged in the context of extreme scarcity of foreign exchange and consequent shortages of all kinds of goods. Two central issues in the campaign were the state of the economy, including the Manley government's relations with the IMF, and the JLP's charges that the Manley government had lost the people's confidence because of its close relations with Cuba. Seaga alleged in particular that the security forces were being subjected to "communist infiltration" and that young brigadistas (construction brigade members) who had received vocational training in Cuba were subjected to political indoctrination.
By 1980 the majority of Jamaicans regarded the PNP government as incapable of managing the economy or maintaining order in the society. Even the security forces joined the opposition to the government. In the October 30, 1980, elections, the PNP was unable to withstand the alliance of the private sector, church, security forces, media, intelligentsia, workers, and unemployed. The electorate gave Seaga's JLP a landslide victory; the opposition party won 59 percent of the vote and 51 of 60 seats in the House of Representatives.
Despite the electoral violence, the election, in which a record 86 percent of the voters turned out, was considered one of the fairest and most important in the nation's history. Other than some incidents of fraud and box tampering, the number of contested votes was relatively low. Stone noted that the election was also the first in which a party had won a majority of the parish vote in all parishes.
After taking office as prime minister, Seaga, who also assumed the finance portfolio, redirected the island's economy along free enterprise lines, emphasizing the role of the private sector and continuing to encourage foreign investment. As the governing party, the JLP under Seaga was described by Stone as "conservative reformist." It continued to receive substantial support from the 100,000-member BITU, and JLP policies were subject to strong labor influence. Nevertheless, the party was not able to take BITU support for granted, and the BITU had been known to act independently.
In the early 1980s, Manley's opposition PNP, described by Stone as "radical reformist," tried to moderate its political image. Stone Polls conducted in early 1981 showed that over 70 percent of the electorate was critical of the PNP's links with local communists. The PNP subsequently broke with the WPJ in a move supported by 71 percent of the electorate. As leader of the opposition in the 1980s, Manley has been the country's most popular party leader. His personality as an emotional nationalist and socialist idealist contrasted sharply with Seaga's. Manley also has continued to represent Central Kingston, a middle-class district, and serve as the NWU leader. In late November 1983, Prime Minister Seaga responded to a PNP leader's call for his resignation as finance minister by announcing the holding of early elections on December 15, 1983. Having achieved a significant increase in popularity because ofJamaica's participation in the United States-Caribbean operation in Grenada in late October, an action that a Stone Poll indicated was supported by 56 percent of the electorate, Seaga was confident of winning the snap elections. The PNP, unable to nominate candidates within the four days allowed, boycotted the elections, arguing that the government had broken a promise to update the voters' register and to implement antifraud measures. The PNP claimed that up to 100,000 eligible voters were disenfranchised.
As a result of the PNP's boycott, the JLP had token opposition in only six of the sixty parliamentary constituencies. By winning those races, the JLP completed its control of the House of Representatives, occupying all sixty seats. The PNP's decision not to contest the election also made the prime minister responsible for selecting the eight nongovernmental opposition members of the Senate. When the government chose non-PNP individuals with independent views, Jamaica found itself with an unprecedented one-party Parliament and without an official leader of the opposition. Ironically, a Stone Poll found that had it not boycotted the election, the PNP would have won the December 1983 elections with 54 percent of the vote and a 10-percent margin over the JLP.
Although the holding of the snap elections was a constitutional prerogative of the prime minister, it marked a departure from Jamaica's traditional consensus politics and weakened the Seaga government's public standing. A 59- to 38-percent majority disapproved of the holding of early elections using the old voters' register. At the same time, according to a December 1983 Stone Poll, the public was generally divided over the PNP's boycott; 47 percent disapproved of it, and 46 percent approved of it. By a margin of 70 to 30 percent, Jamaicans favored calling new elections when the voters' list was ready. The PNP campaigned unsuccessfully during 1985 for a general election to be held by October. The party reasoned that this date would mark the end of the five-year mandate that the electorate had given the JLP in 1980. Opinion polls throughout 1985 showed that the PNP enjoyed a considerable lead over the governing JLP. Nevertheless, the JLP held all sixty seats in the House until early 1986, when two members defected.
Municipal elections, scheduled originally for June 1984 but postponed twice, were held on July 29, 1986. Disputes over a reduction in the number of parish council seats and a redrawing of local constituency boundaries caused the delay. In what was the first real contest between the two main parties since 1980, the opposition PNP defeated theJLP soundly, taking 57 percent of the vote and obtaining control of 11 of the 13 municipalities in which polling had taken place. An estimated 60 percent of the 970,000 eligible voters cast ballots. The JLP's heavy defeat in the local elections was blamed largely on Seaga's austere economic policies and deteriorating social and economic conditions. Buoyed by the victory, Manley appealed, again unsuccessfully, for an early general election; it was not expected to be held, however, before late 1988.
At a JLP retreat held on October 12, 1986, Seaga announced his decision to resign as prime minister in August 1987 and not to seek re-election as leader of the JLP because of "personal considerations" and unhappiness with the progress of his economic recovery program. Seaga revoked his decision, however, at a JLP meeting on November 5, 1986, after JLP members of Parliament and parish councillors voted unanimously not to accept it. Critics expressed skepticism over the strength of support for Seaga and noted that he had used the resignation ploy twice before to rally support successfully: in the early 1970s in a bid to challenge Shearer for the JLP leadership and in 1979 as JLP leader.
Seaga's declining electoral prospects were again reflected in a January 1987 Stone Poll. About 63 percent of those polled said conditions had worsened since 1980 when the PNP had left office, and 56 percent felt that Manley could run the country better than Seaga; the poll gave Seaga only a 45-percent positive rating. Another Stone Poll conducted nationwide in June 1987 found that the JLP had picked up 2 percentage points, but still trailed the PNP by 15.
In August 1987, Seaga became the target of serious criticism as a result of his creation of a commercially run tourist attraction in Ocho Rios called the Gardens of Cariñosa, which was also open to the public for an admissions fee. The PNP and several columnists questioned the propriety of public officials being involved in private investments while still holding office. Although Manley was clearly Jamaica's most popular political leader and favored next prime minister in late 1987, health problems, including major intestinal surgery the previous April, had cast a shadow on his long-term political prospects.
The election date was announced on 15 January 1989. The poll was principally fought on the basis of tight fiscal management with consequential austerity measures, against the contention of neglect to basic social needs in health, education, housing, etc. The outgoing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Government, headed by Prime Minister Edward Seaga, campaigned on its performance while in power, arguing that it engineered economic recovery by good fiscal management, while the opposition socialist People's National Party (PNP) contended that the austerity measures were too severe and to the detriment of the people in putting "balancing the books" before basic "welfare of the people". The JLP felt that it took "cash to care" whereas the PNP thought that a better mix was necessary. In August 1988, the two rivals had signed a pact agreeing to a code of behaviour for the campaign to avoid the violence of previous contests. This resulted in scattered incidents in comparison with the previous (1980) contested poll.
The polling results indicated that the electorate opted for less austerity and the rebuilding of the social services, as PNP, in a landslide, obtained 45 of the House's 60 Seats. As a result, PNP leader Michael Manley became Prime Minister on 13 February, thus recapturing the post he had held until 1980. The new PNP Cabinet was announced the same day. in 1992 Prime Minister Michael Manley resigned for health reasons.
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