Michael Norman Manley (10 December 1924 – 6 March 1997) was a Jamaican politician, trade unionist and journalist who served as the fourth Prime Minister of Jamaica, from 1972 to 1980, and from 1989 to 1992. Manley championed a democratic socialist programme, and has been described as a populist, although many in the country feared he would turn Jamaica into a communist state. 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.

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.

An anti-capitalist, Manley was an advocate of building a socialist system in Jamaica. This reflected the ideology of his own People's National Party, with one study noting that

Domestic reforms

Manley 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.

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.

The minimum voting age was lowered to 18 years, while equal pay for women was introduced. 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. Special employment programmes were also launched, together with programmes designed to combat illiteracy. along with a reform of local government taxation, an increase in youth training,

A worker's participation programme was introduced, together with a new mental health law and the family court.

Diplomacy

thumb|Manley and his fourth wife Beverley with US president [[Jimmy Carter in 1977]]

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. Manley's support for Cuba sending troops to Angola during the Angolan Civil War was criticized by Henry Kissinger and others, and led to a worsening of relations between the US and Jamaica.

In December 1977, Manley visited President Jimmy Carter at the White House to remedy the situation, and relations improved somewhat.

In a speech given at the 1979 meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement, Manley strongly pressed for the development of an 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 — especially from the US and the OAS —, Manley deepened and strengthened Jamaica's ties with Cuba, maintaining friendly relations with Fidel Castro, and paying an official visit to the country in 1975.

Violence

Manley was Prime Minister when Jamaica experienced a significant escalation of its political culture of violence. Supporters of his opponent Edward Seaga and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and Manley's People's National Party (PNP) engaged in a bloody struggle which began before the 1976 election and ended when Seaga was installed as prime minister in 1980. While the violent political culture was not invented by Seaga or Manley, and had its roots in conflicts between the parties from as early as the beginning of the two-party system in the 1940s, political violence reached unprecedented levels in the 1970s. Indeed, the two elections accompanied by the greatest violence were those (1976 and 1980) in which Seaga was trying to unseat Manley.

In response to a wave of killings in 1974, Manley oversaw the passage of the Gun Court Act and the Suppression of Crime Act, giving the police and the army new powers to seal off and disarm high-violence neighborhoods. The Gun Court imposed a mandatory sentence of indefinite imprisonment with hard labour for all firearms offences, and ordinarily tried cases in camera, without a jury. Manley declared that "There is no place in this society for the gun, now or ever."

Violence flared in January 1976 in anticipation of elections. A state of emergency was declared by Manley's party the PNP in June and 500 people, including some prominent members of the JLP, were accused of trying to overthrow the government and were detained, without charges, in the South Camp Prison at the Up-Park Camp military headquarters. During the emergency, according to a report published on 2 November 1977, by investigative reporters Ernest Volkman and John Cummings of the New York newspaper Newsday, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) plotted Manley's assassination, with attempts that "were supposed to have taken place" on 14 July 1976 in Jamaica, and during a visit later in the year to Toronto. Manley's response to the report was "I can confirm not a shot was fired."

Elections were held on 15 December in the 1976 Jamaican general election, while the state of emergency was still in effect. The PNP was returned to office, winning 47 seats to the JLP's 13. The turnout was a very high 85 percent. The state of emergency continued into the next year. Extraordinary powers granted the police by the Suppression of Crime Act of 1974 continued to the end of the 1990s.

Violence continued to blight political life in the 1970s. Gangs armed by both parties fought for control of urban constituencies. In the election year of 1980 over 800 Jamaicans were killed.

In the 1980 Jamaican general election, Seaga became Prime Minister after the JLP won 51 of the 60 seats.

Seaga's failure to deliver on his promises to the US and foreign investors, as well as complaints of governmental incompetence in the wake Hurricane Gilbert's devastation in 1988, contributed to his defeat in the 1989 elections. The PNP won 45 seats to the JLP's 15. His former Deputy Prime Minister, P. J. Patterson, assumed both offices.

Family

Manley was married five times. In 1946, he married Jacqueline Kamellard, but the marriage was dissolved in 1951. In 1955, he married Thelma Verity, the adopted daughter of Sir Philip Sherlock, OM and his wife Grace Verity; in 1960, this marriage was also dissolved. In 1966, Manley married Barbara Lewars (died in 1968); in 1972, he married Beverley Anderson, but the marriage was dissolved in 1990. Beverley wrote The Manley Memoirs in June 2008. Michael Manley's final marriage was to Glynne Ewart in 1992.

Manley had five children from his five marriages: Rachel Manley, Joseph Manley, Sarah Manley, Natasha Manley, and David Manley. The other books he wrote include The Politics of Change (1974), A Voice in the Workplace (1975), The Search for Solutions, The Poverty of Nations, Up the Down Escalator, and Jamaica: Struggle in the Periphery.

On 6 March 1997, Manley died of prostate cancer, the same day as another Caribbean politician, Cheddi Jagan of Guyana. He is interred at the National Heroes Park, where his father Norman Manley is also interred. Photographer Maria LaYacona's portrait of Manley appears on the Jamaican $2,000 note alongside a portrait of Edward Seaga.

Honours

  • 1973: 50px Order of the Liberator, Venezuela
  • 1976: 50px Order of José Martí
  • 1978: 50px United Nations Medal
  • 1989: Member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom (P.C.)
  • 1992: 50px Order of Merit of Jamaica (O.M.)
  • 1994: Order of the Caribbean Community (O.O.C.)

Posthumously:

  • 50px Order of the Nation (O.N.)