Hartley Neita, Contributor

It was in 1944 that every Jamaican - men and women - over age 21, could vote for the first time. Before then, only persons who paid more than 10 shillings per year in taxes, or who earned more than a certain salary or owned a certain amount of property could vote or seek to be elected. In addition to these qualifications, women had to take a literacy test.

Political parties also came into existence, and everybody was involved in the campaign. Even children.

One of the political parties, the JAG Smith party, reported that children were hiding close to where they were holding meetings and using slingshots to hurl stones at candidates and people attending the meetings. As a result, the Director of Education was instructed to issue a circular to all elementary school principals, instructing them to warn their children of the dangers of this practice and to order them to desist.

At that time, too, the political weapons used against opponents were bottles, sticks and stones. Now and then knives and razors were brought into use.

Subsequent election campaigns were relatively peaceful. One got the impression that campaigning was fun. Like cricket. For example, Donald Sangster, who ran as an Independent candidate, invited his opponents to the first political meeting he held in his village. Not only did he invite, but his PNP opponent, E.V. Allen, replied apologising for his inability to attend because of a previous engagement. That engagement, of course, was his own political meeting.

£10 bet

During the 1949 election campaign, Bustamante offered Norman Manley a bet of £10 that his party would win. Manley refused to bet. Luckily.

That sort of camaraderie, continued until the mid-1960s. From then on, guns and bombs became the political weapons. It climaxed between 1976 and 1980. Michael Manley and D.K. Duncan were pinned down by gunfire when they tried to hold a political meeting in Spanish Town.

There was a photograph of Seaga being led away by his security personnel when he was being shot at. P.J. Patterson was ambushed in his constituency and the car in which he was traveling was riddled with bullets. Ferdie Neita, a PNP candidate in St. Catherine, was shot and wounded. And Roy McGann was shot and killed on the eve of Nomination Day in 1980.

Jamaicans who are now only able to vote would not remember the terror of the political war in the 1980s. Gangs of political thugs roamed the streets day and night shooting anyone who was not of their political persuasion. Houses and business places were burnt and destroyed. Nightlife came to a full stop. People stopped going to nightclubs and the cinemas. Moonlight walks came to an end. Hundreds died. It was civil war.

Taking advantage

Criminals took advantage of the political fighting. They raided banks and robbed the payrolls of companies and no one knew where the line was drawn between these criminals and the political gangs. My friend Ralston Smith and I were invited by the Jamaica Tourist Board to a conference at the Stony Hill Hotel to discuss the effect of crime on the industry.

Five men (one a youth of about 14) invaded the hotel and ordered us to lie down on the floor. We were poked with their guns as they searched us for guns, money and our car keys. At any moment we expected our lives to end. Luckily we were not shot.

I am now sensing a return to the 1970s. The politicians of that period should remember the trauma in the country. Hatred and anger are rearing their ugly heads. Bad manners and badmanism are once more being exhibited. Tears of regret and apologies cannot wash away the damage done. Our political leaders must learn to behave themselves. We do not want another civil war.