Background
Edward Seaga was born on 28 May 1930 in Boston, Massachusetts, of Jamaican parents.
government official politician
Edward Seaga was born on 28 May 1930 in Boston, Massachusetts, of Jamaican parents.
He attended secondary schools in Jamaica and Harvard University, graduating with a B. A. in social science in 1952.
He returned to Jamaica to conduct research for the Institute for Social and Economic Research in rural villages and urban slums in Jamaica where he later developed a strong political following.
In 1959, the president of the Jamaican Labour Party (JLP), Sir William Alexander Bustamante, invited Seaga to serve in the Upper House of the Jamaican Legislative Assembly, the youngest person ever to hold such a position. The same year he was elected a member of Parliament, on the JLP ticket, from one of the poorest constituencies in Kingston. Between 1962 and 1967 he served as minister of development and welfare and between 1967 and 1972 he was minister oí finance and planning.
In 1960 Seaga was elected assistant secretary of the JLP. two years later he was elevated to the post of secretary, and in 1974 he was elected leader of the JLP and leader of the Parliamentary Opposition. Seaga came to be popularly perceived as the person who could bring the country out of the severe economic plight it was facing in the latter half of the 1970s. He led the JLP to a massive electoral victory over the democratic socialist government of the People's National Party (PNP) headed by Michael Norman Manley in 1980.
In December 1983 the JLP was reelected unopposed after the PNP refused to contest national elections in protest of the Seaga government’s failure to update electoral registration.