He was West Kingston's representative for 40 consecutive years and held a parliamentary seat longer than anyone in Jamaica's history.īorn May 28, 1930, in Massachusetts to Lebanese-Jamaican parents, Seaga renounced his U.S. His political career began in the late 1950s and he won a parliamentary seat in 1962. Seaga, Jamaica's prime minister from 1980 until 1989, was the only remaining member of the generation of leaders who drafted the constitution when the Caribbean island gained independence from Britain in 1962. Seaga's death was announced on Twitter by Prime Minister Andrew Holness. The couple had a daughter, Gabrielle, in 2002, when he was 72.Edward Seaga, a former Jamaican prime minister who shaped the island's post-independence politics and cultural life, died Tuesday at 89. He remarried in 1997 to Carla Vendryes, 30 years younger. They had three children together - Anabella, Andrew, and Christopher - before divorcing. Seaga was married from 1965 to 1996 to the former Marie Constantine, who had been Miss Jamaica 1964. Seaga, who was chief of the Labor Party until 2005. First elected to Parliament in 1997 at the age of 25, he was a special assistant to Mr. Holness, the current prime minister from the Labor Party, is a protégé of Mr. Seaga remained Labor’s leader for many years afterward and he built national institutions such as the annual festival celebrations, the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission, and the HEART National Training Agency, among other institutions. Seaga’s party lost the general election to Manley after he transformed into a centrist. Seaga and Manley clasp hands over his head and promise an end to the violence. The concert’s highlight was a moment that has become immortalized in Jamaican consciousness: Reggae icon Bob Marley made Mr. Seaga’s Labor Party, Jamaica’s leading reggae musicians took the stage at a Kingston concert to support peace. Seaga is forever linked with the state-sponsored political violence of the 1970s, when Jamaica’s two major political factions used gangsters to sway voters.įollowing a deadly 1978 military ambush of gang members allied to Mr. Clashes between rival partisans killed nearly 800 people. The run-up to the 1980 elections that vaulted him to power was extraordinarily bloody. He was President Reagan’s closest Caribbean ally and was able to boost a struggling economy that was hit hard by soaring inflation and widespread joblessness. Seaga instituted a pro-American, free-market economy, ushering in what many consider the island’s most prosperous era. Seaga described the landslide victory as a ‘‘declaration against communism in Jamaica.’’Īs Jamaica’s leader, Mr. Seaga’s Labor Party ousted the incumbent Manley and the People’s National Party’s ‘‘democratic socialist’’ administration in 1980, Mr. Seaga railed against the socialist agenda of then-Prime Minister Michael Manley, saying it crippled the island’s fragile economy. distribution company and played a role in introducing ska to the world.Īt 29, he was appointed to Jamaica’s upper legislative house by Labor Party founder and Jamaica’s first prime minister, Alexander Bustamante.Īs opposition leader in the 1970s, Mr. Seaga was a major record producer who operated the West Indies Record Ltd.
He studied anthropology at Harvard University and published several papers on Afro-Jamaican folklore and Obeah, a religion combining Christian and African rituals.īefore entering politics, Mr. Seaga renounced his US citizenship at a young age to show his loyalty to Jamaica. Born May 28, 1930, in Boston to Lebanese-Jamaican parents, Mr.
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