The 1993-1997 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: 590-629

590 / Post-Independence Administrations

The 1993 Elections: Background and Results

Michael Manley and the PNP emerged from the 1989 elections

with a near landslide victory. However, the moderation of the

administration that emerged contrasted sharply with the socialist agenda

of the 1970s. This time around, the state had no role in the commanding

heights of the economy. Indeed, Michael Manley seemed intent on

building good relations with the United States as well as the local

capitalist class. The US administration, for its part, came up with a US$30

million grant for post hurricane aid, while the US press, led by the New

York Times, mooted support for the new administration.

Manley’s new domestic policy was almost inevitable, given the

profound changes which had taken place in the world, and from which

capitalism had emerged as an unchallenged global system. It was a world

in which the international communist system had unravelled, beginning

with the dismantling of communist states in Eastern Europe. Finally, on

December 26, 1991 the Supreme Soviet, the main legislative organ of

the Soviet Union since 1917, met in Moscow and dissolved the Soviet

Union. However, it was the demolition of the Berlin wall, which began

on November 10, 1992, more than any other single act, which signaled

for Westerners the collapse of world communism.

The global triumph of capitalism that followed established a system

of international and financial currency markets, trade liberalization, state

minimalization and corporate empowerment, driven and dominated by

The 1993–1997 Administration

Chapter 14

The 1993–1997 Administration / 591

the United States, along with a new international cultural order. In this

new uni-polar world, there were no longer any of the special concessions

previously accorded on the basis of ideology or geo-politics in the cold

war. Globalization in a neo-liberal policy framework created the necessity

for an internal re-organization of Jamaica’s state and economy, in

accordance with the imperatives of liberalization and deregulation. In

the interest of distancing itself from its 1970’s orientation, the

administration liberalized relatively rapidly compared to other Caribbean

and Third World States and, in some instances, without adequate

preparation. The new situation also lent urgency to the administration’s

search for solutions to some of the fundamental challenges it had

inherited.

The release of Nelson Mandela from prison in South Africa on

February 11, 1990 constituted an event of epochal significance. Here in

Jamaica a spontaneous outpouring of emotion greeted his release, and

his later visit to the island provided the opportunity for a major

demonstration of solidarity and black nationalism.

The victory of the trade unionist, Michael Manley, over the economic

manager, Edward Seaga, in the 1989 elections once again forced political

analysts to examine the political priorities of the Jamaican voter. This is

how Carl Stone posed the issues:

Tourism in the 1980s has been the highest growth sector of the

Jamaican economy. The tourist areas have experienced an

explosion of employment, construction, investment expansion,

business income, and increased prosperity. Yet the tourist areas

voted more heavily for the PNP in 1986 than the rest of the

country. In the author’s January 1988 Stone Poll, 86 per cent of

voters interviewed in an enlarged tourism sub-sample admitted

that they were experiencing substantial improvement in income

and economic opportunities since the tourism boom under Mr.

Seaga’s JLP government. Yet a majority of the voters in those

tourist areas indicated that they wanted a change of government

and would like to see Mr. Manley back in power.1

592 / Post-Independence Administrations

The post-mortem on the elections also brought into question Seaga’s

reputation for economic management. Timothy Ashby, Director of the Office

of Mexico and the Caribbean Basin from the US Department of Commerce,

published an assessment of Seaga from which the following is taken:

Despite one billion in US development assistance and the close

friendship of the Reagan administration, Edward Seaga failed

to transform Jamaica’s economy during more than eight years

in office, becoming a disappointment, as well as a political

embarrassment, to his many supporters. His stated commitment

to the private sector seemed at odds with an evident distaste for

dismantling Jamaica’s pervasive statism.… Per capita GDP was

unchanged from 1980 while foreign debt had more than doubled,

leaving Jamaica one of the world’s most indebted countries on a

per capita basis. The Jamaican dollar had plummeted in value

by 300 percent against the U.S. dollar yet was still considered

overvalued by World Bank and other economists. Nearly a

quarter of the Jamaican workforce remained unemployed.2

On the economic front, Manley accelerated the processes of

liberalization and deregulation. However, within two years his health

began to deteriorate, and in 1991 he was out of office for four months.

Patterson seemed all set to succeed Manley when the controversy over

his decision to grant a waiver to a petroleum importing company led to

his resignation from the Cabinet. In January 1992, Patterson left the

corridors of state power, uttering just three words with characteristic

conviction: ‘I shall return.’

Manley announced his retirement later that month, and on March

28, 1992 the delegates of the People’s National Party voted

overwhelmingly for P.J. Patterson to succeed him. His opponent, Portia

Simpson, although immensely popular with the masses, was never

seriously in contention for the job of Prime Minister. Patterson’s victory

was a fitting reward for nearly four decades of outstanding service to

the party and State at every level.

Prime Minister P.J. Patterson was arguably the best-prepared