The following is a tribute to late former Prime Minister Edward Seaga by Professor Trevor Munroe, executive director of National Integrity Action (NIA):

FOURTEEN years ago when Mr Seaga retired from Parliament, as a senator then, I paid tribute to him in the Senate on January 28, 2005. On that occasion, I publicly acknowledged “the deficiencies and one-sidedness of the left”, in which I played a prominent part, in demonising Mr Seaga, at the same as I advised against the opposite extreme of deifying this outstanding Jamaican leader. With the further passage of time, the exceptional and extraordinary contribution of Edward Seaga to Jamaica’s modern development can no longer be questioned.

As an institution builder over many decades, his impact remains unparalleled in its scope, depth and resilience. It spanned many spheres; a limited sample:

• Culture: his role in the elevation of Marcus Garvey as Jamaica’s first national hero, his reclaiming of the legitimacy of our African heritage, his inauguration of the Jamaica Festival movement are but three elements in this area.

• Economy and Planning: the establishment of the Jamaica Stock Exchange, the setting up of the Urban Development Corporation and the reclamation and development of the Ocho Rios Waterfront deserve mention in this area.

• Education and Training: the establishment of HEART and his role in setting up the Institute of Mass Communications, later renamed CARIMAC, remain chapters in his outstanding record .

However, it is in the fundamental area of governance that Seaga’s legacy is very likely to be the most enduring as well as complex.

In this area Seaga played a critical role in the number of crucial initiatives to safeguard and deepen Jamaica’s democracy.

• The establishment, along with Michael Manley, of the Electoral Advisory Committee at the end of the 1970s was a pivotal and historic step. This EAC later evolved into the Electoral Commission of Jamaica, an institution, unique in the pivotal role accorded to non-political representatives, and which helped rescue Jamaica’s electoral administration from being among the worst to becoming among the best in the world today.

• The preservation of Jamaica’s Parliamentary democracy in the second half of the 1980s when Seaga appointed independent senators to the Upper House and developed other mechanisms to ensure checks and balances on his own power when Jamaica, arising from the PNP boycott of the 1983 election, had only JLP MPs occupying all seats in the House of Representatives and thereby faced the prospect of ‘one party dictatorship’.

• Most of all, Seaga parented the development of Jamaica’s Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedom, eventually passed in 2011 under the Golding Administration. This charter strengthened the rights of the Jamaican people against erosion from any quarter, including from Government, and incorporated path-breaking clauses, such as the provision to protect women against discrimination on the grounds of gender.

Seaga’s approach to leadership undoubtedly included an authoritarian element, but it also combined strength and courage with a willingness to change when the evidence and facts so required. Courage and strength he displayed, for example, in standing up to the impositions of the IMF (1986 – 1987) when he felt that their demands at the time, which included the devaluation of Jamaica’s currency, were inimical to Jamaica’s national interest. Equally, he displayed great courage to stand up to criminal elements in his own constituency, reporting them by name to the police in 1994 when, as he himself said, they embarked on a spate of violence, rape and murder.

At the same time, Seaga was able to learn from experience. During the discussion in 1961-62 of provisions to be included in Jamaica’s independence Constitution, Seaga supported the pre-eminence of prime ministerial power over Jamaica’s governance arrangements. Learning from the following 40 years’ experience, however, Seaga changed his view and became one of the strongest advocates of measures to impose far-reaching limits on the power of a Jamaican prime minister. He advocated amending Jamaica’s Constitution to, among other things, limit the number of ministers a prime minister could appoint, to introduce a significant number of non-party senators representing civil society bodies, appointed independently of the PM and the leader of the Opposition, and to include a mechanism for impeachment of public officials, including the prime minister himself.

The downside of Seaga’s legacy remains his role in the development of ‘zones of political exclusion’, otherwise called ‘garrison constituencies’. This phenomenon continues to undermine Jamaica’s democratic political system. However, in the development of this scar on Jamaica’s democracy, Seaga was, of course not alone; both sides of the aisle were complicit in this outgrowth of political tribalism. To his credit however, by 2002, Seaga declared unequivocally, in the JLP Manifesto of that year: “We must break the past tradition of polarisation of Jamaica politically…into warring tribes”.

An essential part of all of us honouring Edward Seaga’s outstanding legacy must be to carry forward this imperative: breaking political polarisation in Jamaica’s politics, leaders as well as followers, placing nation above party loyalty, particularly in working together along with civil society, to confront today’s twin demons — violent crime and corruption.

On my own behalf and that of NIA, I extend deepest condolences to Mr Seaga’s wife Carla, his children, family and extended political family.