Kitts and Nevis said yesterday as he reflected on the beloved and charismatic statesman’s remarkable life and political career. Edward Seaga’s leadership style and politics, resulting in him being widely admired and respected as an influential force within the Caribbean Community,” the Chairman of CARICOM and Prime Minister of St. “A strong sense of both regionalism and responsibility permeated the Rt. Edward Seaga, Jamaica’s fifth Prime Minister (1980-1989) and longest-serving parliamentarian. He was also the youngest of the founding fathers who were architects of the Jamaican Constitution, as well as the last surviving member of that cohort. Seaga renounced his American citizenship during his early life and became the youngest person at the age of 29 to be appointed to serve in the Legislative Council. He died yesterday, Tuesday, May 28 th, 2019, his 89 th birthday.īorn in Boston, Massachusetts to Lebanese-Jamaican parents, Edward Seaga would go on to lead the Jamaica Labour Party for over 30 years (1974-2005). Edward Seaga, Jamaica’s fifth Prime Minister (1980-1989) and longest-serving parliamentarian, who was a successful record producer before entering politics. Kitts and Nevis extends heartfelt condolences to the people of Jamaica and the Caribbean on the passing of the Rt. He had four children, including a daughter in 2002 when he was 72.Chairman of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Prime Minister Dr. Seaga was married twice - to the former Marie Constantine, who was Miss Jamaica 1964, and later Carla Vendryes. In 1989, Seaga's party lost the general election to Manley after he transformed into a centrist, but Seaga remained Labor's leader for many years afterward. The concert's highlight was a moment that has become immortalised in Jamaican consciousness: Reggae icon Bob Marley made Seaga and Manley clasp hands over his head and promise an end to the violence. Following a deadly 1978 military ambush of gang members allied to Seaga's Labor Party, Jamaica's leading reggae musicians took the stage at a Kingston concert to support peace. For some older Jamaicans, Seaga is forever linked with the state-sponsored political violence of the 1970s, when Jamaica's two major political factions used gun-toting gangsters to sway voters. Clashes between rival partisans killed nearly 800 people. However the run-up to the 1980 elections that vaulted him to power was extraordinarily bloody. He was US President Ronald Reagan's closest Caribbean ally and was able to boost a struggling economy that was hit hard by soaring inflation and widespread joblessness.
He instituted a pro-American, free market economy, ushering in what many consider the island's most prosperous era. When Seaga's Labor Party ousted the incumbent Michael Manley and the People's National Party's "democratic socialist" administration in 1980, Seaga described the landslide victory as a "declaration against communism in Jamaica". Before politics Seaga was a major record producer who operated the West Indies Record Ltd distribution company and played a role in introducing ska to the world. The son of Lebanese-Jamaican parents, Seaga won a parliamentary seat in 1962 and was West Kingston's representative for 40 consecutive years - holding a parliamentary seat longer than anyone in Jamaica's history. "It is with great sadness that I inform the nation of the passing of the Most Honourable Edward Phillip George Seaga, the fifth Prime Minister of Jamaica," Holness posted, along with a picture of the former leader. Seaga's death was announced on Twitter by Prime Minister Andrew Holness. Seaga was Jamaica's No.1 official from 1980 until 1989 and the only remaining member of the generation of leaders who drafted the constitution when the Caribbean island gained independence from Britain in 1962. Jamaica's prime minister has announced the death of Edward Seaga, a former Jamaican leader who shaped the island's post-independence politics and cultural life.