Martin HenryMartin Henry
EDWARD SEAGA has been a principal architect of what has come to be called our 'political culture'. At the very base, he was one of a handful of framers of the Independence Constitution. This qualifies him as a Founding Father of the Nation in United States terms a Jefferson, a Madison, a Washington. Years ago an American visitor remarked to me about our special circumstance of living in the era of the Founding Fathers, knowing them and being able to interact with them.
As MP, party leader, Minister, Prime Minister, and Leader of the Opposition he has had a most profound impact on the creation of the political culture as we find it. We are inheritors of the Westminster style of parliamentary democracy by colonial precedence and tradition and by the Constitution which Mr. Seaga helped to craft.
In his insightful 1997 Grace, Kennedy Foundation Lecture, 'Westminster Style Democracy: The Jamaican Experience', Professor Gladstone Mills discussed how that system has been transformed in its Jamaican transplantation.
Mills opened up by saying when the GKF conceived the lecture series on the short list of topics was 'The Pervasiveness of Partisan Politics and its Implications.' "By that year [1988], Jamaica had experienced a period spanning almost a generation of tribal warfare the fight for scarce benefits and for the spoils of victory at the polls."
PARTISAN POLITICS
Mr. Seaga came to office as Prime Minister in 1980 in a scenario which Mills described as "distinguished by the unprecedented incidence of murders during the run-up to the General Elections of October 1980, the majority, it seems, motivated by partisan politics."
In five of six contested general elections, the people have not selected the JLP led by Mr. Seaga. But we must not forget the uncontested general election of 1983 from which the PNP withdrew. Mr. Seaga acted in statesmanlike manner in the one-party Parliament which followed to preserve democracy. He appointed independent senators and studiously preserved the framework of Westminster style democracy which many believe was under serious threat in the 1970s.
"The most vulgar and dysfunctional manifestation of the process of political tribalism," the 1997 Report of the National Committee on Political Tribalism said, "has been the development of 'the garrison' within constituencies." The Report set out in stark terms the garrison process and results. While there are disagreements in identifying garrisons, on everybody's list is Western Kingston, one of two or three constituencies for the JLP compared to eight or nine for the PNP.
But yet sections of Western Kingston have been a marvellous model of political representation and development by one of the best-loved Members of Parliament anywhere in the country, or in the world for that matter. Other smaller sections loyal to the other side cry about neglect and victimisation in the tribal war of the political culture and the leader enters those enclaves at his own risk.
Local Government is vital to Westminster style democracy. Gladstone Mills and others see the Seaga-led JLP Government of the 1980s as emasculating the system. Seaga must be assessed for his impact on Local Government and the advance of the centralisation of power in Kingston, in Cabinet, and in Prime Minister.
Edward Seaga has been the great institution builder. These institutions have transformed Jamaica in many ways. But it isn't all positive. Mills discusses the marginalisation of the Civil Service through the proliferation of statutory and quasi-government bodies which live off critical functions not just of an operational nature but in the area of policy advice. One dimension of the political culture is a weakened Civil Service, one of whose primary functions is to provide jobs often as scarce benefits to party faithfuls with or without competence.
INFLATED REPUTATION
Mr. Seaga's inflated reputation of financial wizardry in Govern-ment did not prevent a ballooning of the country's debt problem under his stewardship. Jamaica has become an international case study on debt and no growth. But Seaga did bring some stability and some growth to the national economy after the chaos of the 70s.
Seaga the champion of culture, the founder of the Jamaica Festival and its institutional home the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission, the popular music expert and supporter, the student and supporter of folk culture, the beautifier of public space, the 'architect' of cultural landmarks. But who may have failed to sufficiently consider and manage the anti-developmental elements of culture. Political parties have, perhaps unfortunately, become linchpins of Westminster style (and other styles) democracies. Mr. Seaga's impact on the Jamaica Labour Party, and therefore on the competitive election process, deserves the closest and most balanced scrutiny.
POLITICAL POWER
Prior to the 1993 general election, the Jamaican electorate had worked out its own strategy for regulating political power. We alternated parties after two terms, imposing our own term limits on black dog and monkey.
What Jamaica is politically, economically and socially, and will be over the next several years, has been, to an extra-ordinary degree, determined by one extraordinary man a great builder and breaker. Founding fathers soon become heroes. Heroes soon get placed on pedestals beyond question and criticism. As Seaga slowly rides off into the sunset, let us honestly deal with the matter of his legacy, especially as this week we mourn the passing of another great leader, Hugh Lawson Shearer, who has helped shape the very foundations of the nation.
Martin Henry is a
communication specialist.
