The man who turned Jamaica away from socialism – Edward Seaga, Jamaican prime minister, 1930-2019 | Caribbean International Network

Edward Seaga with supporters in Spanish Town, Jamaica, in 2003. The JLP leader was nicknamed ‘Blinds’ because of his fondness for sunglasses © AP

JUNE 7, 2019

Jamaica’s bloody election in 1980 made headlines around the world. Hundreds of people died in clashes between gun-toting political gangs on the streets of Kingston. But by also sweeping Edward Seaga into power, the vote ultimately proved to be a turning point in the history of the Caribbean island.

Seaga, who has died of cancer aged 89, embraced a free market and pro-US approach, turning his country away from the militant socialism of his predecessor and political nemesis Michael Manley, who worried many in Washington by forging close links to Fidel Castro’s communist Cuba.

The ideological clashes between Seaga and Manley and the deadly street wars between their gangs of political supporters were a defining feature of Jamaica in the late 1970s. The bloodshed reflected a system of political patronage that still endures today and can often decide who gets jobs, housing or police protection.

Growing up in Jamaica in the 1970s, I remember the excitement of armed officers sitting in a jeep at the end of our suburban road during a dusk-to-dawn curfew in one particularly violent election campaign. I also recall the sadness of losing friends when other expatriate families left the country, fearing it could become the next Cuba. In an iconic moment, reggae star Bob Marley — who had narrowly survived an assassination attempt a couple of years earlier — tried to end the cycle of violence by calling Seaga and Manley on to the stage at the 1978 One Love Peace Concert in Kingston, holding their hands together above his head to the raucous approval of the crowd. Yet the violence did not die down until after Seaga’s election two years later.

Edward Philip George Seaga was born in Boston, Massachusetts, where his Jamaican parents lived at the time. His father, Philip Seaga, was a businessman of Lebanese descent. His mother Erna (née Maxwell) had African, Scottish and Indian ancestry. They moved back when he was three months old. Seaga’s foreign birth and mixed-race parents would later be used by opponents: “The Syrian” was a common insult.

Edward Seaga with Bob Marley at the One Love Peace Concert in Kingston in 1978 © Getty

After attending Wolmer’s Boys’ School in Kingston, Seaga returned to the US to study social sciences at Harvard University. Back in Jamaica, he developed an interest in folk music while working on a rural anthropology project and set up a record label for ska music.

He later criticized how Jamaican music developed into dancehall, saying: “If you can’t whistle it, it is not music.” He sold the label after being appointed to the legislative council that was preparing for independence. At the age of 29, Seaga was its youngest member. Once self-rule arrived in 1962 he was elected MP for the impoverished constituency of West Kingston for the Jamaica Labour party.

Nicknamed “Blinds” due to his fondness for sunglasses, as well as criticism that he failed to see the needs of ordinary Jamaicans, Seaga built a bedrock of support by replacing the “Back-o-Wall” slums in his constituency with the Tivoli Gardens housing development. The area later deteriorated into a police no-go zone and gained notoriety in 2010 when hundreds of armed officers swooped in search of local gangster Christopher “Dudus” Coke, wanted by the US on drug charges. The operation left 74 people dead.

As a minister, Seaga set up the Jamaica stock exchange and Jamaica Citizens Bank, the country’s first locally-owned commercial bank. After becoming JLP leader in 1974, he shifted to a more conservative stance — setting up a bitter battle with Manley’s firebrand socialism.

Campaigning victoriously on the slogan “deliverance is near” he was lifted on to the shoulders of supporters chanting “Ah Eddie, we ready”. In power, he reversed the nationalisations, exchange controls and higher taxes of the Manley regime. He severed ties with Cuba.

Seaga’s policies revived the Jamaican economy, yet he was accused of being aloof after the devastation of Hurricane Gilbert in 1988 and of failing to fix the inequality of Jamaican society before his defeat in the 1989 election. A workaholic, he later expressed regret for giving “seven days a week to work”. He had three children with first wife Marie “Mitsy” Constantine, a television presenter and Miss Jamaica. After they divorced, he married Carla Vendryes in 1996 and had a daughter.

Seaga’s political influence persisted long after he lost power. Seth George Ramocan, the Jamaican High Commissioner in London who worked closely with Seaga when he was in office, said: “Today there is little difference between the two big parties and a lot of that is down to Eddie.”