Voting Under the Gun

By Marguerite Johnson

Mayhem and poverty figure in Seaga 's big win

Supporters rang brass bells in celebration. Swooning youths snaked through dances of joy. Party workers tearfully embraced one another. With a sobriety that contrasted with the noisy jubilation all around him, Edward P.O. Seaga, leader of the Jamaica Labor Party, emerged into the spotlight at his Kingston campaign headquarters and claimed "the most dramatic electoral victory in the history of the country." Unlike much of the preceding campaign's rhetoric, this was no exaggeration.

The low-keyed former financial expert had just handed a devastating defeat to Prime Minister Michael N. Manley, the buoyant leader of the People's National Party. In a reversal of the landslide Manley won in the past two elections, the final count might give the Labor Party 51 of the 60 seats in the country's Parliament, a gain of 38 over the 1976 election. The People's Party was reduced from 47 to a mere 9. With that, the island nation had taken a sharp turn in its political course: away from Manley's pro-Cuban "democratic socialism" toward Seaga's pro-U.S. conservatism.

Since Seaga is a former official of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the outcome also seemed to be a vote of confidence in his ability to attract foreign investment. In his victory statement, in fact, Seaga said his first order of business would be to restore economic growth. And while he insisted that there would be no break in relations with Havana, he left little doubt that he planned to alter Jamaica's foreign policy. He asked the Cuban Ambassador, who had been accused of meddling in Jamaican affairs, to leave the island forthwith.

Seaga's landslide victory climaxed the most divisive and bloody campaign experienced by the island since it became independent from Britain in 1962. Fierce party loyalties divided the black ghettos of Kingston block by block, and many on both sides took to carrying guns. One of the casualties was Roy McGann, 43, a junior Cabinet minister and People's Party candidate for reelection, who happened to drive near a Labor Party rally; a fracas broke out, and McGann was shot and killed. Officials estimated that more than 500 people have been killed this year in fratricidal bloodletting.

On election day, steel-helmeted army troops, backed up by armored cars and helicopters, guarded polling places and patrolled the streets. Nonetheless, the gunfire echoed through the tough slums of Kingston all day long. The Kingston Public Hospital, located in the center of the trouble, took in a dozen casualties. One young man, who had allegedly tried to steal a ballot box, had nearly been decapitated by a machete. The casualty toll just for the ten-hour polling period: three killed and 20 wounded.

The breeding ground of resentment, and the dominant issue throughout the campaign, was the country's dire economic crisis. One-third of the work force is unemployed, inflation is running at 30%, and the country's lack of foreign exchange is so acute that sugar, cooking oil, soap and and rice are sometimes impossible to buy.

Food shortages, in fact, provided Seaga with a key theme. "We are in a country that produces sugar, and you can't get a bowl of sugar." The election soon boiled down to a choice between proffered economic solutions: Manley's Third World socialism vs. Seaga's Western-backed free-enterprise monetarism. A cascade of reckless rhetoric from both parties also tried to turn the election into a false battleground between "godless Communism" and "sinister fascism."

Manley's followers claimed that the CIA was supporting Seaga and covertly supplying him with arms, while Seaga's supporters characterized Manley as a closet revolutionary who would turn the island into another Cuba.

In the end it was clear that the voters blamed Manley for the country's economic morass. During his eight years as Prime Minister, the handsome, magnetic Manley, 55, scion of the island's most prominent political family, had made some significant contributions to Jamaica: a minimum wage, free education, equal pay for women, newly built health centers and 40,000 units of low-income housing. But endemic poverty remained, and critics charged his administration with woeful mismanagement. His warm abrazo for Fidel Castro frightened the middle class as well as foreign investors. Soon Jamaica found itself with a severe brain drain and an inability to finance the increased cost of oil imports.

A Harvard graduate (in sociology), Seaga, 50, spent several years in a rural part of Jamaica studying child development and also wrote a book on the island's spiritualist cults. At the age of 29 he became the youngest member of the legislature, where at the time he was considered more leftist than Manley. He held Cabinet posts in both the Labor governments that ruled from 1962 to 1972; as Finance Minister he earned a reputation as a tough administrator, especially in plugging tax loopholes. He and his wife Mitsy, a former Miss Jamaica, have three children.

Last week Seaga dismissed accusations that over the years have painted him alternately as a Communist and a fascist. "The fact of the matter is that I am very much in the center," he said. His most immediate problem, he explained, would be to renegotiate the country's $1.5 billion debt and deal with the country's virtual bankruptcy. As to warnings of continued violence, he expressed optimism that he would be able to bind the nation's wounds "Once the decision has been made." he said, "the people who are the losers usually move out of the way because they don't have anything to fight for any more."

-- By Marguerite Johnson

Reported by Bernard Diederich and William McWhirter/ Kingston

With reporting by Bernard Diederich, William McWhirter

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