Return of the Chief

After 307 years of colonial rule, Jamaica, biggest and richest of the British West Indies, goes its independent way Aug. 6. Last week the island's voters chose the government that will steer them through the first days of independence.

Chief contenders were two cousins who quarreled 20 years ago and have enlivened Jamaican politics ever since with their name-calling feud. "The opposition is made up of fools," cried incumbent Premier Norman Washington Manley, 68, an aloof, Oxford-educated barrister. In even louder voice was his opponent. Sir William Alexander Bustamante, 78, a tempestuous, half-Irish Bohemian. Manley billed himself as "The Man with the Plan," but to Bustamante he was only "The Clot with the Plot."

On election day, Old Busta and his Jamaica Labor Party had the better of the argument. By the narrow margin of 4,647 votes in a total of 569,781, Manley, after seven years in office, was defeated. Manley won the big towns. But Bustamante was the hero of the sugar cane workers. His party won 26 of the 45 seats in the House of Representatives, returning the aging "Chief" to the premiership that he had held from 1944 to 1955.

He inherits some serious economic difficulties. Manley's earnest efforts to expand sugar and bauxite production have tripled Jamaica's gross national product to $675 million. But 93% of the island's 1,600,000 people are still on a bare subsistence level and unemployment still runs at 18% of the 700,000-man labor force. Nor does it help that Manley's forced-draft programs have turned a $9,800,000 treasury surplus into a $115 million debt. Jamaica can no longer count on London for money, having dropped out of the West Indies Federation, leaving the nine other British islands in the Caribbean to fend for themselves.

If Bustamante had a plan to improve matters, he was keeping it to himself. But he obviously sees a large role for the U.S., whose tourists already bring $38 million a year to Jamaica. While Manley had conducted a mild flirtation with the Soviet bloc, Busta was now looking steadfastly West. "There will be no neutrality from this day on," he announced. "I will go to the U.S. shortly to make a mutual defense treaty." As an afterthought, the Chief delightedly noted: "The Kremlin has not sent congratulations to me--and they damn well wouldn't."

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