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.
In 1962 he helped draft the Jamaican independence constitution.
He helped set up the Jamaica Stock Exchange and the Jamaica Development Bank, and initiated a program of Jamaicanization in banking, insurance, utilities, and agriculture, transferring foreign ownership to majority Jamaican ownership. He was concerned primarily with making Jamaica as selfreliant as possible. During his tenure as minister of finance and planning, the country experienced its greatest period of economic growth. Seaga was also an active promoter of national culture, promoting indigenous music, as well as local performing and graphic arts.
Seaga sought to attract foreign investment and to stimulate the private sector. He also undertook a pro-Western and particularly pro-U. S. foreign policy, reversing that of the previous government. He became the region's staunchest advocate of the Caribbean Basin Initiative, the Reagan administration’s economic plan for the Caribbean. Seaga also played a pivotal role in the United States’ decision to invade neighboring Grenada after the murder of Maurice Herbert Bishop in 1983. Jamaica sent one of the largest contingents of troops from the Caribbean to participate in the invasion force.
