Leadership transitions in the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the People’s National Party (PNP) were generally uncontentious before the 1990s. Thereafter, an invasive political bug seemed to have infested 20 Belmont Road and 89 Old Hope Road at roughly the same time.

I think the infestation had a lot to do with the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991. This signalled the end of the Cold War. The Cold War began in March 1947 and was marked by the announcement of the Truman Doctrine. The doctrine called for American support to help free nations resist totalitarian regimes, emphasising that such aggression posed a direct threat to the security of the United States.

The ideological battle between socialism, which Dr Trevor Munroe said was the same as communism, waned. In war, the victor gets the spoils. Liberalisation and privatisation became the only game in town. Economic liberalism aims to shrink State control and expand free markets. American President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher were its clear global champions.

PARADIGM SHIFTS

With the dissolution of the Cold War, global politics rapidly transitioned in the 1990s from an arena that largely focused on two distinct ideologies. The shift, some say a downward one, centred on the weakening of State power.

President Reagan famously said: “Government is not the solution to our problem; Government is the problem.” He made this statement during his first inaugural address in January 1981. In the context of the economic struggles at the time, Reagan argued that excessive government intervention, bureaucracy, and taxation were hindering the economy and infringing on individual liberties.

Jamaica and most other especially developing economies had to fall in line with the global tsunami of liberalisation and privatisation. These paradigm shifts filtered down to the individual level and were the dominant theme in our politics until Jamaica and many other countries understood and accepted that, left to its own devices, the so-called invisible hand of the market will almost always clap in one direction — to the decided advantage of the well-to-do. I have said it here before, but it bears repeating: There is no preordained hand determining market forces. It is humans at work. Human action is mostly predictable and alter-able.

We must reject the nonsense that, “A suh di ting set.” In fact, it is people who set ‘di ting’ — market economics and all. Those who lean left and, worse, those who lean far left, have never recovered from the ideological defeat of the 1990s. Many of them have become more capitalist than Adam Smith, who is widely credited as the father of capitalism. Others, who still suffer from the political concussion of the Cold War, continue to believe in and sell socialism (now rebranded as progressive to hide its global failures) as utopia. International benchmarks tell us there is no successful socialist country on Earth. I doubt there will ever be one.

For those who are quick to draw the Scandinavian countries, don’t. Those countries are not socialist. I long ago dispelled that myth in this space. It was in the midst of liberalisation and privatisation that local party leadership contests in the JLP and the PNP took a decided turn for the worse in the 1990s.

Michael Manley

LARGELY UNEVENTFUL

Alexander Bustamante, later Sir Alexander Bustamante, was the founder and first leader of the JLP and the first prime minister of independent Jamaica. The JLP was formed in July 1943 as the political wing of the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU), which had been at the forefront of the working-class labour riots of 1938. The JLP received the lion’s share of its support from the very impoverished working classes, particularly in deep rural Jamaica.

By contrast, the PNP got the majority of its support from what was then considered the middle-class black Jamaicans. The majority of the PNP’s support, along with most of its leadership and financial backing, came from educated professionals and the urban elite, who had self-determination at the top of their agenda. The core of the JLP’s grass roots support was more concerned with daily “bread and butter” matters. The Michael Manley era resulted in a significant increase in grass roots support for the PNP. Even so, the JLP is seen today as the natural party of the grass roots and of sensible pragmatism.

The transition from Sir Alexander Bustamante to Donald Sangster, later Sir Donald Sangster, was largely uneventful. Credible accounts say there was no formal contest to choose Sangster. Instead, the transition was set in motion by the JLP’s founder, Sir Alexander Bustamante, who steered the party’s parliamentary majority and delegates to reach a consensus behind closed doors. Sangster was seen as the natural heir apparent by many inside and outside the JLP.

He was a versatile sportsman. He excelled in cricket, football, athletics, and boxing at Munro College. His interest in sports continued after he left Munro, and at one time he was captain of the St Elizabeth parish team in the Nethersole Cricket Cup Competition. Following his education at Munro College he entered a legal apprenticeship and was formally admitted to practice as a solicitor in Jamaica in 1937. He entered national politics in 1944.

Following Sir Alexander Bustamante’s retirement from active politics, he officially took office in February 1967. Sangster was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in April 1967 while he was in a coma in a Canadian hospital. He died four days later. The JLP had lost one of its shining lights.

Sir Alexander Bustamante

CHANGE IN THE TIDE

Hugh Shearer became prime minister of Jamaica in April 1967, following the death of Sir Donald Sangster. Shearer attended the Falmouth Primary School and from there he won the parish scholarship to St Simon’s College, a privately owned high school in Kingston. He graduated from St Simon’s in 1940. (Jamaica Information Service)

Hugh Shearer

Unlike Donald Sangster, Hugh Shearer had to fend off formal challengers. Shearer was challenged for the premiership in February 1967 by David Clement (D C) “Clem” Tavares and Robert Lightbourne. In the initial vote, Tavares actually placed first. However, because he did not achieve an absolute majority, there was a run-off. Shearer, Bustamante’s protégé and BITU island supervisor, won by a slim margin. Shearer was 44 years old. He was the youngest prime minister in the Commonwealth at the time. He faced huge backlash, especially from the lighter-skinned commercial wing of the JLP. Grass roots supporters accused him of “selling out” to moneyed interests. Class and colour were potent weapons in Jamaican society then, as they are today.

Sir Donald Sangster

EDWARD SEAGA

These details regarding the fierce internal power struggle in the JLP between Hugh Shearer, D C Tavares, and Robert Lightbourne highlight how early post-Independence politics were deeply intertwined with socio-economic dynamics. Conditions like these helped create fertile ground for Michael Manley’s democratic socialism.

Forty-four-year-old Edward Seaga took over from Hugh Shearer as the leader of the JLP in November 1974. JLP leader Shearer declined to continue in the post. Seaga was unanimously elected to lead the JLP. Seaga, the Member of Parliament for Kingston Western, received 2,052 votes to St Andrew South Western MP Wilton Hill’s 97 votes. Ironically, in 1973, Seaga had announced that he was planning to step away from representational politics. Frank Phipps defeated fellow attorney Ian Ramsay 1,472 votes to 550 for the role of first deputy leader.

Ponder this from the Jamaica Observer of October 13, 2024: “Pearnel Charles, then an Opposition senator, said Shearer had no interest in leading the JLP after its crushing defeat to the People’s National Party (PNP) in the 1972 General Election. Seaga, who was a minister in the administrations of Sir Alexander Bustamante and Sir Donald Sangster, seemed the logical successor.

“ ‘Shearer wanted to leave after the 1972 election and he wasn’t going to fight people, because there were other popular guys like Seaga,’ Charles told the Observer.”

Hugh Shearer was the consummate gentleman politician. We need more like him today. Seaga was politically assertive, strategically agile and, among other things, he understood perhaps much better than Shearer that representational politics in many respects was like a chess game. Seaga understood how to get into his opponent’s head and figure out what moves he/she was going to make before he/she made them. Seaga had a comprehensive grasp of the importance of physiological needs and the critical impact of those needs on local political decisions. This critical factor largely escaped Michael Manley and his socialists in the 1970s. They still don’t get it. Seaga understood very well that production preceded consumption.

He attended Harvard University, where he earned a degree in social sciences. Prior to attending Harvard, he graduated from Wolmer’s Boys’ School.

Manley called a general election during a state of public emergency in December 1976 and won a disputed poll. Many key JLP heavyweights, including Pearnel Charles and “Babsy” Grange, were incarcerated during the state of emergency on the phony charge that they were a threat to national security. I previously detailed in this space that the 1976 General Election was held under severely sordid and corrupt conditions.

Seaga led his party to a landslide victory four years later. He became Jamaica’s fifth prime minister. Shearer was selected as deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade. I have previously detailed here the massively positive and transformational impact that Seaga’s time in politics — and his premiership in particular — had on Jamaica’s growth and development.

Anyway, Michael Manley did not contest the general election of December 1983. By 1989 Manley had ditched the kariba suit and had donned the jacket and tie commonly associated with Western capitalism. Seaga and the JLP were defeated in the February 1989 General Election by a rebranded Manley. Deep political lacerations in the JLP then burst wide open, as often happens when a party suffers defeat. The troubles had started in the JLP. Those troubles led to the wilderness years from 1989 to 2007. Losses in the 1989, 1993, and 1997 general elections, and the local government elections of 1986, 1990, and 1998, rendered Seaga damaged political goods. Before Seaga retired in January 2005 at the age of 75 he fended off several revolts, attempted internal political coups, and formal leadership challenges. Most notably, in 1991 (The Gang of Five), senior members including Edmund Bartlett and Pearnel Charles challenged Seaga’s autocratic leadership style, leading to their temporary sidelining. In 1995 (The Western 11), a bloc of western Members of Parliament demanded Seaga’s resignation. This rift prompted Bruce Golding to form the National Democratic Movement (NDM). And in 2000 Mike Henry ran against Seaga for the top job at the party’s annual conference. Seaga prevailed.

Edward Seaga.

EBBS AND FLOWS

Bruce Golding, the long-time heir apparent to Seaga, took charge of the JLP in February 2005. He was elected unopposed. Bruce Golding resigned in September 2011 due to the political fallout relating to the Christopher “Dudus” Coke extradition controversy, the toll of governing through a severe economic recession, and a desire to clear the way for new leadership before the 2007 General Election.

Bruce Golding was succeeded as prime minister of Jamaica by 39-year-old Andrew Holness in October 2011. Audley Shaw, the then Opposition spokesman on finance, challenged Andrew Holness for the leadership of the JLP in November 2013. At the end of a very vibrant contest, Holness captured 2,704 votes compared to 2,012 for Shaw.

These are key to smoother leadership transitions. Do not ever overstay your welcome. Succession planning is vital. “Vaulting ambition” is dangerous.

Bruce Golding.

Garfield Higgins is an educator and journalist. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or higgins160@yahoo.com.

HIGGINS … .