Background
Eric Matthew Gairy was born in Grenville on 18 February 1922.
government official politician
Eric Matthew Gairy was born in Grenville on 18 February 1922.
He received his primary education in Grenada.
In his late teens went to Trinidad to work on a U.S. military base, and then migrated to the Dutch colony of Aruba to work in an oil refinery.
While in Aruba, Gairy became a trade union organizer, the traditional route for incipient political activists. He met Theophilus Albert Marryshow, the Grenadian political and labor activist, a meeting that led to his decision to return to Grenada in December 1949.
In Grenada, Gairy found a society politically and economically dominated by a small group of predominantly white elites. In his hometown of Grenville, Gairy took up the cause of the peasants, in their dealings with authorities and land¬owners. He also formed the Grenada Manual and Mental Workers Union in July 1950. After successfully mobilizing for better wages and conditions of work on behalf of sugar workers, Gairy began efforts to secure his union as the bargaining agent in other sectors of the economy. He called a general strike in February 1951.
British troops were called in, and Gairy was held in custody for 11 days on the Island of Carriacou. This action precipitated serious rioting, looting, and burning, which forced the governor to bargain with Gairy. When his demands were met, Gairy successfully ended the protests.
In early 1951 Gairy formed the colony's first political party, the Grenada United Labour Party (GULP). As with his union, Gairy assumed the position of president-general. Under a new constitution providing for universal adult suffrage and an elected majority of eight members on the Legislative Council, Gairy led his party to victory in six of eight constituencies in 1951. After serving less than a year, however, Gairy was suspended from the Legislative Council in 1952 for abusive behavior. In 1954 he lost his seat on the Executive Council, only to be reinstated six months later when GULP captured seven of the eight elective seats. In 1955 Gairy was again suspended from the Legislative Council for disruptive behavior; nonetheless, in March 1956 he became minister of trade and production.
Gairy’s party lost the general elections in September 1957, winning only two of eight seats, although GULP received 51.9 percent of the popular vote. A coalition of opposition parties under the leadership of Herbert Augustus Blaize assumed power until 1961. When a new constitution ushered in a ministerial system, it was Blaize and not Gairy who became the country’s first chief minister.
During the 1957 electoral campaign, Gairy had been disenfranchised and proscribed from holding elective office for violating the electoral law. Although not an officeholder after the March 1961 elections when his party won eight of ten elective seats, he assumed the role of “adviser to the government,” which was nominally run by a friend and nominee. When his franchise was restored in June of the same year, Gairy won a seat in a by-election, and became chief minister and minister of finance on August 17, 1961.
The Gairy government, and Gairy personally, demonstrated increasing evidence of financial impropriety. A Commission of Inquiry produced evidence of misuse and waste of public funds by Gairy and his government, and of a campaign to force members of the civil service to commit or condone financial improprieties. The Grenadian Constitution was suspended, and when elections were called in September 1962, GULP won 45.9 percent of the vote but was victorious in only four constituencies. The Grenada National Party (GNP) captured the remaining six seats, and Herbert Blaize once more was chief minister.
In March 1967 Grenada was granted Associated Statehood, thereby giving the legislature and cabinet full control of all government affairs except defense and external affairs. In elections a few months after Associated Statehood was acquired, Gairy led GULP in winning seven of ten constituencies. Gairy became premier, a post he held until February 1974, when Grenada became fully in¬dependent and he became the country’s first prime minister.
In the period between 1967 and 1979, the Gairy government carried on state- directed violence and intimidation against political opponents by the“Mongoose Gang,” and patronage and corruption were rife. The period also witnessed severe economic decline and strong allegations of electoral fraud.
After Gairy’s ouster in March 1979 by an armed takeover by the New Jewel Movement, Gairy took up residence in the United States. He returned to Grenada after the violent collapse of the Peoples Revolutionary Government in late 1983 and subsequent military intervention by the United States.
Gairy resuscitated his party to contest elections held in December 1984, but GULP won only 1 of 15 seats and approximately one-third of the popular vote. The victorious GULP candidate soon resigned, leaving Gairy’s group without representation in Parliament.