Michael Manley

Michael Norman Manley (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. Manley championed a democratic socialist program, and has been described as a populist. According to opinion polls, he remains one of Jamaica's most popular prime ministers.

Early life

Michael Manley was the second son of premier Norman Washington Manley and artist Edna Manley. He studied at Jamaica College between 1935 and 1943. He attended the Antigua State College and then served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II. In 1945, he enrolled at the London School of Economics. At the LSE, he was influenced by Fabian socialism and the writings of Harold Laski. 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.

Entry into politics

When his father was elected premier of Jamaica in 1955, Manley resisted entering politics, not wanting to be seen as capitalizing on his family name. However, in 1962, he accepted an appointment to the Senate of the Parliament of Jamaica. He won election to the Jamaican House of Representatives for the Central Kingston constituency in 1967.

After his father's retirement in 1969, Manley was elected leader of the People's National Party, defeating Vivian Blake. He then served as leader of the Opposition, until his party won in the general elections of 1972.

Domestic reforms

In the 1972 Jamaican general election, Manley defeated the unpopular incumbent Prime Minister, Hugh Shearer of the Jamaica Labour Party, as his People's National Party swept to a landslide victory with 37 of 53 seats.

He instituted a series of socio-economic reforms that produced mixed results. Although 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, a type of formal bush-jacket suit with trousers and worn without a shirt and tie.

Under Manley, Jamaica established a minimum wage for all workers, including domestic workers. In 1974, the PNP under Manley adopted a political philosophy of Democratic Socialism.

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 or purchased by large bauxite companies.

The minimum voting age was lowered to 18 years, while equal pay for women was introduced.''Insight Guide: Jamaica'', Insight Guides, APA Publications, 2009. 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.

Subsidised meals, transportation and uniforms for schoolchildren from disadvantaged backgrounds were introduced, together with free education at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels.Stewart, Chuck, ''The Greenwood Encyclopaedia of LGBT Issues Worldwide'', Volume 1. Special employment programmes were also launched,Kari Levitt, ''Reclaiming Development: independent thought and Caribbean community''. together with programmes designed to combat illiteracy. Increases in pensions and poor relief were carried out,Michael Kaufman, ''Jamaica under Manley: dilemmas of socialism and democracy''. along with a reform of local government taxation, an increase in youth training, an expansion of day care centres. and an upgrading of hospitals.Rose, Euclid A., ''Dependency and Socialism in the Modern Caribbean: Superpower Intervention in Guyana, Jamaica and Grenada, 1970–1985''.

A worker's participation programme was introduced,Panton, David, ''Jamaica’s Michael Manley: The Great Transformation (1972–92)''. together with a new mental health lawLevi, Darrell E., ''Michael Manley: the making of a leader''. and the family court. 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. 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, subsidies (in 1973) on basic food items, and the automatic recognition of unions in the workplace.

Manley was the first Jamaican prime minister to support Jamaican republicanism (the replacement of the constitutional monarchy with a republic). In 1975, his government established a commission into constitutional reform, which recommended that Jamaica become a republic. In July 1977, after a march to commemorate the Morant Bay rebellion, Manley announced that Jamaica would become a republic by 1981. This did not occur, however.Burke, Michael (21 April 2016)
"Queen, emperor and republican status"
''The Jamaica Observer''. Retrieved 2 September 2016.

Diplomacy

Manley developed close friendships with several communist and socialist leaders, foremost of whom were Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Olof Palme of Sweden, and Fidel Castro of Cuba. With Cuba just north of Jamaica, he strengthened diplomatic relations between the two island nations, much to the dismay of United States policymakers.

Manley expressed support for anti-colonial African movements such as the MPLA during the Angolan Civil War, where the MPLA successfully fought off, with Cuban military help, the rival UNITA movement, which was backed by apartheid South Africa and the US. The US labelled Jamaican support for the MPLA as "hostile", and the US government was critical of the Manley government for their close relationship with Fidel Castro's Cuba. When Henry Kissinger visited Jamaica in 1975, he warned Manley against supporting the MPLA and Cuba. More broadly there was a deterioration of relations between the United States and Jamaica during Manley's tenure beginning with the Nixon administration and continuing on with the Ford Administration due to allegations of CIA activities on the island. Attempts at an improvement of relations were made during the Carter Administration.

In December 1977, Manley visited President Jimmy Carter at the White House to remedy the situation. Details of the meeting, however, were never disclosed.

In a speech given 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: "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." Despite some international opposition, Manley deepened and strengthened Jamaica's ties with Cuba.

In diplomatic affairs, Manley believed in respecting the different systems of government of other countries and not interfering in their internal affairs.

Violence

Manley was Prime Minister when Jamaica experienced a significant escalation of its political culture of violence. Supporters of his opponent Edward Seaga

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