Michael Manley

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The Most Honourable

Michael Manley
ON OCC

Prime Minister of Jamaica

In office
10 February 1989 30 March 1992
Monarch

Elizabeth II

Preceded by

Edward Seaga

Succeeded by

P. J. Patterson

In office
2 March 1972 1 November 1980
Monarch

Elizabeth II

Preceded by

Hugh Shearer

Succeeded by

Edward Seaga
Leader of the Opposition
In office

1 November 1980 10 February 1989

Preceded by

Edward Seaga

Succeeded by

Edward Seaga
In office
1969 2 March 1972

Preceded by

Norman Manley

Succeeded by

Hugh Shearer
Personal details

Born

Died

10 December 1924
Saint Andrew Parish, Jamaica
6 March 1997 (aged 72)
Kingston, Jamaica

Nationality

Jamaica

Political party

People's National Party

Alma mater

London School of Economics

Religion

Roman Catholic
Military service

Allegiance

Canada

Service/branch

Royal Canadian Air Force

Years of service

1943-1945

Rank

Pilot officer

Battles/wars

World War II

Michael Norman Manley ON OCC (10 December 1924 6 March 1997) was a Jamaican
politician who served as the fourth Prime Minister of Jamaica from 1972 to 1980 and from 1989
to 1992. Coming from a prosperous background, Manley was a democratic socialist.[1] He is
considered one of Jamaica's best Prime Ministers since independence, according to public
opinion polls.[2]
The second son of Jamaica's Premier Norman Washington Manley and Jamaican artist Edna
Manley, Michael Manley was a charismatic figure who became the leader of the Jamaican
People's National Party a few months before his father's death in 1969.

Contents
[hide]

1 Pre-political career

2 Domestic reforms

3 Diplomacy

4 Violence

5 Opposition

6 Re-election

7 Family

8 Retirement and death

9 Notes

10 Films about Michael Manley

11 Sources

12 External links

Pre-political career[edit]
Manley attended Jamaica College and then served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World
War II. In 1945, he enrolled at the London School of Economics. He graduated in 1949, and
returned to Jamaica to serve as an editor and columnist for the newspaper Public Opinion. At
about the same time, he became involved in the trade union movement, becoming a negotiator
for the National Workers Union. In August, 1953, he became a full-time official of that union.[3]
When his father was elected chief minister of Jamaica in 1955, Manley resisted entering politics,
not wanting to be seen as capitalizing on his family name. However in 1962 accepted an
appointment to the Senate of the Parliament of Jamaica. He won a very close election to the
Jamaican House of Representatives in 1967. After his father's retirement in 1969, Manley was
elected leader of the People's National Party, defeating Vivian Blake.[4] He then served as leader
of the Opposition, until his party won in the general elections of 1972.[3]

Domestic reforms[edit]
In the election of 1972, Manley defeated the unpopular incumbent Prime Minister, Hugh
Shearer, running on the slogans "Better must come", "Giving power to the people" and leading "a
government of truth".
He instituted a series of socio-economic reforms that produced mixed results. Though he was a
Jamaican from an elite family, Manley's successful trade union background helped him to
maintain a close relationship with the country's poor majority, and he was a dynamic, popular
leader. Unlike his father, who had a reputation for being formal and businesslike, the younger
Manley moved easily among people of all strata and made Parliament accessible to the people by
abolishing the requirement for men to wear jackets and ties to its sittings. In this regard he started
a fashion revolution, often preferring the Kariba suit which was a type of formal bush or safari
jacket with trousers and worn without a shirt and tie.

Under Manley, Jamaica established a minimum wage for all workers, including domestic
workers. In 1974, Manley proposed free education from primary school to university. The
introduction of universally free secondary education was a major step in removing the
institutional barriers to private sector and preferred government jobs that required secondary
diplomas. The PNP government in 1974 also formed the Jamaica Movement for the
Advancement of Literacy (JAMAL), which administered adult education programs with the goal
of involving 100,000 adults a year.
Land reform expanded under his administration. Historically, land tenure in Jamaica has been
rather inequitable. Project Land Lease (introduced in 1973), attempted an integrated rural
development approach, providing tens of thousands of small farmers with land, technical advice,
inputs such as fertilizers and access to credit. An estimated 14 percent of idle land was
redistributed through this program, much of which had been abandoned during the post-war
urban migration and/or purchased by large bauxite companies.
The minimum voting age was lowered to 18 years, while equal pay for women was introduced.[5]
Maternity leave was also introduced, while the government outlawed the stigma of illegitimacy.
The Masters and Servants Act was abolished, and a Labour Relations and Industrial Disputes Act
provided workers and their trade unions with enhanced rights. The National Housing Trust was
established, providing "the means for most employed people to own their own homes," and
greatly stimulated housing construction, with more than 40,000 houses built between 1974 and
1980.[5]
Subsidised meals, transportation and uniforms for schoolchildren from disadvantaged
backgrounds were introduced,[6] together with free education at primary, secondary, and tertiary
levels.[6] Special employment programmes were also launched,[7] together with programmes
designed to combat illiteracy.[7]
Increases in pensions and poor relief were carried out,[8] along with a reform of local government
taxation, an increase in youth training,[9] an expansion of day care centres.[10] and an upgrading of
hospitals.[10]
A worker's participation programme was introduced,[11] together with a new mental health law.[9]
and the family court.[9] Free health care for all Jamaicans was introduced, while health clinics and
a paramedical system in rural areas were established. Various clinics were also set up to facilitate
access to medical drugs. Spending on education was significantly increased, while the number of
doctors and dentists in the country rose.[10]
Project Lend Lease, an agricultural programme designed to provide rural labourers and
smallholders with more land through tenancy, was introduced, together with a National Youth
Service Programme for high school graduates to teach in schools, vocational training, and the
literacy programme, comprehensive rent and price controls, protection for workers against unfair
dismissal, and subsidies (in 1973) on basic food items.[11]

Diplomacy[edit]

Manley and his fourth wife Beverly (formerly Beverly Anderson) with US president Jimmy
Carter in 1977.
Manley developed close friendships with several foreign leaders, foremost of whom were Julius
Nyerere of Tanzania, Olof Palme of Sweden, Pierre Trudeau of Canada and Fidel Castro of
Cuba. With Cuba just 145 km (90 mi) north of Jamaica, he strengthened diplomatic relations
between the two island nations, much to the dismay of United States policymakers.
At the 1979 meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement, Manley strongly pressed for the
development of what was called a natural alliance between the Non-aligned movement and the
Soviet Union to battle imperialism. In his speech he said, "All anti-imperialists know that the
balance of forces in the world shifted irrevocably in 1917 when there was a movement and a man
in the October Revolution, and Lenin was the man." Manley saw Cuba and the Cuban model as
having much to offer both Jamaica and the world.
In diplomatic affairs, Manley believed in respecting the different systems of government of other
countries and not interfering in their internal affairs.

Violence[edit]
Manley was the Prime Minister when Jamaica experienced a significant escalation of its political
culture of violence. Supporters of his opponent Edward Seaga and the Jamaica Labour Party
(JLP) and Manley's People's National Party (PNP) engaged in a bloody struggle which began
before the 1976 election and ended when Seaga was installed as Prime Minister in 1980. While
the violent political culture was not invented by Seaga or Manley, and had its roots in conflicts
between the parties from as early as the beginning of the two-party system in the 1940s, political
violence reached unprecedented levels in the 1970s. Indeed, the two elections accompanied by
the greatest violence were those (1976 and 1980) in which Seaga was trying to unseat Manley.
In response to a wave of killings in 1974, Manley oversaw the passage of the Gun Court Act and
the Suppression of Crime Act, giving the police and the army new powers to seal off and disarm
high-violence neighborhoods. The Gun Court imposed a mandatory sentence of indefinite
imprisonment with hard labor for all firearms offenses, and ordinarily tried cases in camera,
without a jury. Manley declared that "There is no place in this society for the gun, now or
ever."[12]
Violence flared in January 1976 in anticipation of elections. A State of Emergency was declared
by Manley's party the PNP in June and 500 people, including some prominent members of the
JLP, were accused of trying to overthrow the government and were detained, without charges, in
a specially created prison at the Up-Park Camp military headquarters.[13] Elections were held on
15 December that year, while the state of emergency was still in effect. The PNP was returned to
office. The State of Emergency continued into the next year. Extraordinary powers granted the
police by the Suppression of Crime Act of 1974 continued to the end of the 1980s.

Violence continued to blight political life in the 1970s. Gangs armed by both parties fought for
control of urban constituencies. In the election year of 1980 around 800 Jamaicans were killed.
Jamaicans were particularly shocked by the violence at that time.
In the 1980 elections, Seaga's JLP won and he became Prime Minister.

Opposition[edit]
As Leader of the Opposition Manley became an outspoken critic of the new conservative
administration. He strongly opposed intervention in Grenada after Prime Minister Maurice
Bishop was overthrown and executed. Immediately after committing Jamaican troops to Grenada
in 1983, Seaga called a snap election two years early on the pretext that Dr Paul Robertson,
General Secretary of the PNP, had called for his resignation. Manley, who may have been taken
by surprise by the maneuver, led his party in a boycott of the elections, and so the Jamaica
Labour Party won all seats in parliament against only marginal opposition in six of the sixty
electoral constituencies.
During his period of opposition in the 1980s, Manley, a compelling speaker, travelled
extensively, speaking to audiences around the world. He taught a graduate seminar and gave a
series of public lectures at Columbia University in New York.
In 1986 Manley travelled to Britain and visited Birmingham. He attended a number of venues
including the Afro Caribbean Resource Centre in Winson Green and Digbeth Civic Hall. The
mainly black audiences turned out en masse to hear Manley speak.
Meanwhile, Seaga's failure to deliver on his promises to the US and foreign investors, as well as
complaints of governmental incompetence in the wake Hurricane Gilbert's devastation in 1988,
also contributed to his defeat to the popular Manley in the 1989 elections.

Re-election[edit]
By 1989 Manley had softened his socialist rhetoric, explicitly advocating a role for private
enterprise. With the fall of the Soviet Union, he also ceased his support for a variety of
international causes. In the election of that year he campaigned on a very moderate platform.
Seaga's administration had fallen out of favor both with the electorate and the US and the
PNP was re-elected.
Manley's second term focused on liberalizing Jamaica's economy, with the pursuit of a freemarket programme that stood in marked contrast to the interventionist economic policies pursued
by Manley's first government. Various measures were, however, undertaken to cushion the
negative effects of liberalisation. A Social Support Programme was introduced to provide welfare
assistance for poor Jamaicans. In addition, the programme focused on creating direct
employment, training, and credit for much of the population.[11]

The government also announced a 50% increase in the number of food stamps for the most
vulnerable groups (including pregnant women, nursing mothers, and children) was announced. A
small number of community councils were also created. In addition, a limited land reform
programme was carried out that leased and sold land to small farmers, and land plots were
granted to hundreds of farmers. The government also had an admirable record in housing
provision, while measures were also taken to protect consumers from illegal and unfair business
practices.[11]
In 1992, citing health reasons, Manley stepped down as Prime Minister and PNP leader. His
former Deputy Prime Minister, Percival Patterson, assumed both offices.

Family[edit]
Michael Manley was married five times. In 1946 he married Jacqueline Kamellard but the
marriage was dissolved in 1951. Manley then married Thelma Verity in 1955; in 1960 this
marriage was also dissolved. In 1966 Manley married Barbara Lewars (died in 1968); in 1972 he
married Beverley Anderson but the marriage was dissolved in 1990. Beverly Anderson Manley
wrote The Manley Memoirs in June 2008.[citation needed] Michael Manley's final marriage was to
Glynne Ewart in 1992.[14]
Manley had 5 children from his five marriages: Rachel Manley, Joseph Manley, Sarah Manley,
Natasha Manley and David Manley.[citation needed]

Retirement and death[edit]

Manley wrote seven books, including the award-winning A History of West Indies Cricket, in
which he discussed the links between cricket and West Indian nationalism.
Michael Manley died of prostate cancer on 6 March 1997, the same day as another Caribbean
politician, Cheddi Jagan of Guyana. He is interred at the National Heroes Park, where his father
Norman Manley is also interred.