The 1976-1980 Administration

• Author: Trevor Munroe/Arnold Bertram
• Profession: Rhodes Scholar and Fulbright Fellow, political scientist, labour activist and politician, is Professor of Government and Politics at the University of the West Indies, Mona/Distinguished commentator on Jamaican Social History and Political Development is a former Legislator in both houses of the Jamaican Parliament and a former Minister of ...
• Pages: 421-467

The 1976–1980 Administration / 421

The 1976 Elections: Background and Results

Despite the impressive record of economic growth recorded by the

Shearer administration between 1967 and 1972, Michael Manley

defeated him by a landslide in the 1972 general elections, capturing 56

per cent of the popular vote, the largest majority recorded up to then.

This defeat has often been used to question the judgment of the Jamaican

masses that comprise the majority of the electorate. How could voters,

after a period of record economic growth, endorse the slogan ‘time for a

change’ and vote out the incumbent administration?

Very often, the experience of the Jamaican masses is that spectacular

economic growth translates into super-profits for the racial minorities

who own the economy, and depressed wages for the black majority who

provide labour. During Shearer’s term of office, very little of the super-

profits trickled down to the working people, and unemployment

increased. Worse, the resurgence of ‘Black Nationalism’ found Shearer

on the side of the establishment.

To Shearer’s credit, the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) was a

major piece of worker legislation. However, it was hardly enough to

change popular perception that the first black man to occupy this exalted

position had been less than sensitive to the aspirations of his race.

Consequently, a large part of the electorate, when offered the choice,

opted for a leader who, in their view, would use the power of the state to

intervene on their behalf in the fight for improved wages and a better

The 1976–1980 Administration

Chapter 10

422 / Post-Independence Administrations

quality of life. In Michael Manley, they found not only a champion for

workers’ rights, but also a passionate advocate for social justice and for

an end to racial oppression.

Economic growth is a precondition for the development of the

country, and all sectors must be educated around this reality. Prudent

fiscal management and an investor friendly environment cannot be traded

off in the fight for equity. But as long as ownership of the economy

remains exclusively in the hands of racial minorities, it will be difficult

to convince the dispossessed that their interests are also served in a

growing economy.

The PNP victory of 1972 under the leadership of Michael Manley

was perhaps the most complete expression of national consensus and

convergence around his articulation of a programme of social justice.

For the first time, the PNP enjoyed simultaneously the overwhelming

electoral support of big business, manual wage labour, white-collar

workers and the unemployed, as a record breaking 56 per cent of the

electorate voted for Michael Manley’s promise of change.

The populist phase of the Michael Manley regime lasted until the

declaration of Democratic Socialism in October 1974, which formalized

the incorporation of the radical intelligentsia as an integral part of the

administration in which Michael Manley himself articulated the need

for radical change. By the time of the socialist declaration, D.K. Duncan

had assumed the position of General Secretary of the Party, and former

Abeng activists Arnold Bertram and Paul Miller had been given seats in

the Senate, and assigned as Parliamentary Secretaries in the Office of

the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Youth and Community

Development respectively.

Simultaneously, the People’s National Party Youth Organization

(PNPYO), under Paul Burke and Sheldon McDonald, began recruiting

to its ranks young people with progressive ideas and an appetite for

political work. Up to that point, women had played outstanding individual

roles in the political process. Beverley Manley would be the first to

consciously organize women as a collective force to influence political

decision making.

The 1976–1980 Administration / 423

Major programmes of social transformation had been introduced,

including a national literacy campaign and land reform, and the

possibilities for class collaboration and social peace seemed endless. Those

who opposed Manley’s socialist stance held the view that had he not

introduced the rhetoric of socialism, the regime would have been spared

the migration of its entrepreneurial class and the economic sabotage

which followed.

It was also a period in which US imperialism was being viewed as

the major obstacle to international peace and development. The war in

Vietnam was becoming increasingly unpopular, and in Latin America,

the United States involvement in the overthrow of the democratically

elected government of Allende in Chile, and the continuing isolation of

Cuba only served to strengthen anti-US feeling in the region. The decision

of the Soviet Union to exploit the situation by extending its influence in

Latin America and Africa served to heighten tensions and escalate the

Cold War. It was with the appointment of Kissinger as Secretary of

State, that the United States began to reassert its hegemony and contain

Soviet ideological penetration.

This was the context in which Michael Manley imposed a levy on

the foreign-owned bauxite companies and expanded the role of the State

in the economy. Jamaica had ‘moved from a pro-Western, free market

economy, with a liberal government ideology, to a non-alignment, state

interventionist market economy and an official socialist non-Marxist

ideology’. 1

Relations between the Manley government and the US

administration of President Ford cooled considerably between 1974 and

1976, as Jamaica expanded its relations with Cuba, and Manley himself

took on a leading role in the non-aligned movement and the struggle

against US imperialism in Africa. As the Jamaica–Cuba links increased

over the period, the JLP, the local and the North American mass media,

the local business class in both the merchant and manufacturing sectors,

and a vocal minority among the professional middle class, orchestrated

a propaganda campaign accusing the government of communist

tendencies and directions.