Tomorrow, October 30, is the 35th anniversary of the general election of 1980. It will mark 35 years since the end of the plan to construct a socialist State in Jamaica, which many have referred to as a disastrous experiment. Tomorrow also marks 35 years since the worst-ever political violence in Jamaica ceased.

Michael Manley and the People’s National Party (PNP) were voted out of office. The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), led by Edward Seaga, won 51 of the 60 seats in Parliament with almost 59 per cent of the vote. Seaga was sworn in as prime minister on November 1, 1980.

While I do research for both a living and a hobby, I rely on my memory today and what I observed.

The pre-1980 scenario

Much has been said about the buoyant economy of the 1960s that was destroyed in the 1970s. While great amounts of savings due to very little spending on improving the quality of life for the poor can be a sign of a buoyant macroeconomy, is it a sign of a buoyant microeconomy? Why was the Michael Manley-led PNP elected on February 29, 1972? Was it only because of Manley’s charisma or because of discontentment? Actually, it was both.

Since the economy was buoyant, why was there discontentment before the election of Michael Manley in 1972? Although Jamaica had achieved political independence 10 years earlier, not much had changed for the poor. Barefooted and hungry children walked to primary school if one was available. Wattle-and-daub houses sheltered the Jamaican peasantry from Negril to Morant Point, and poor people wore tattered clothing just as in colonial times.

Poor road conditions, children carrying buckets of water on their heads and a lack of electricity was common. Telephones were a luxury for the rich and the upper middle class. Only the better-off poor people could purchase bicycles, let alone motorcycles and cars. After the Coral Gardens (Montego Bay) riots of 1964, then Prime Minister Sir Alexander Bustamante exhorted the police to arrest every Rastafarian on sight. I suspect that the 1966 visit of Emperor Haile Selassie was a strategy to appease the Rastas after the Coral Gardens incident — but it did not.

The JLP won power again in 1967 amid cries by the Norman Manley-led PNP of gerrymandering. Donald Sangster became prime minister, but he died after 48 days in office. He was succeeded by Hugh Shearer, a man described by an American ambassador as “a well-dressed negro who knew his place”. The riots in October 1968 caused by the expulsion of Guyanese-born lecturer Walter Rodney on charges never proven, which made Shearer even more unpopular.

Michael Manley was elected president of the PNP on February 9, 1969. However, the JLP won the local government elections of March 18, 1969 on the voters’ list for the 1967 General Election when its ‘shelf-life’ had expired. Had Michael Manley not met the expectations of the poor in the 1970s, would there have been have been a bloody revolution?

Education was declared free in 1973 and was financed by the bauxite levy of 1974. Hospital fees were abolished. The upper classes had to pay a more realistic land tax. The minimum wage law was enacted and the National Housing Trust was established. There was an Impact Programme as well as ‘Operation Land Lease’, as conceptualised mostly by his father, Norman Manley.

The oil crisis that started in December 1973 put many of Manley’s social programmes out of whack. But there was also some amount of mismanagement caused by inexperience and explosive statements which frightened some with wealth into migrating. Many from the masses who had been given powerful positions abused it in their jump from peasant to overseer.

In 1974, the PNP forestalled the JLP’s plan to rebrand themselves ‘social democrats’ by returning to their earlier democratic-socialist label. But Manley’s non-alignment trade policy with Cuba and the Soviet Union in the era of the Cold War angered the United States of America. I cannot prove that the Central Intelligence Agency of the USA was here, but steps similar to those found in the CIA manual on how to destabilise a country were implemented. Was the JLP the tool of the USA to bring down Michael Manley?

The post-1980 scenario

The JLP came to power in 1980 amidst the cries that “deliverance” had come. So why after eight years and three months was the JLP booted from office? Why after only three years in office did Seaga have the need to strategically call an election on a three-year old voters’ list that brought the JLP to power in 1980, which the PNP boycotted?

It was partly because deliverance had not come. Unemployment and lay-offs, no doubt due to International Monetary Fund conditions, came instead. By the middle of the 1980s, the Cold War between the USA and the Soviet Union was lessening and communism in that country was on its way to an end. Obviously, Edward Seaga was no longer useful to the USA, so it appears that campaign funds from that source dried up, which also factored in the JLP’s defeat in 1989.

With no socialist country to trade with as the Cold War ended, Michael Manley shelved socialism on his return to office in 1989. He resigned in 1992 and Percival Patterson was elected PNP president and became prime minister. During P J Patterson’s reign, more highways were built along with greater accessibility to motor vehicles, telephones and housing. After 14 years in office as prime minister, Patterson resigned in 2006. Portia Simpson Miller was elected PNP president and became prime minister.

After 18 years and four terms in of the PNP in government, largely caused by disunity in the JLP, the PNP lost power to the JLP and Bruce Golding became prime minister in September 2007. Golding resigned in 2011 in the middle of the ‘Dudus’ affair. Andrew Holness became prime minister and served for 74 days before losing to the Portia Simpson Miller-led PNP in the election held on December 29, 2011, and once again Simpson Miller became prime minister. You know the rest.

ekrubm765@yahoo.com