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Jamaica without Sir Alexander Bustamante? It is like Ethiopia without Haile Selassie, Yugoslavia without Tito. A white-maned half-caste who seemed a kind of quixotic king to the island's poor back-country blacks, Bustamante organized the widespread riots that won the Caribbean country a large measure of self-rule in the 1940s, led Jamaica to complete independence from Britain five years ago, and since then has served as the country's Prime Minister. Last week Sir Alexander, ailing and half-blind at 83, resigned as head of government and called new national elections for Feb. 21. The politicians of Jamaica's two major parties raced for rostrums. Bustamante's first cousin and archrival, Norman Manley, 73, who leads the People's National Party, denounced the snap election as a "rape of democracy," since candidates would have only three weeks instead of the customary six in which to campaign. The politicking got off to a turbulent start when toughs at a rally of Bustamante's Jamaica Labor Party began tossing rocks and hit the Minister of Development and Welfare on the head. The politicking is also apt to get pretty turbulent within Bustamante's own party, where a four-way fight is shaping up to pick a successor to the old man as Labor Party leader.

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