From Jamaica Wiki
Edward Philip George Seaga was born to Jamaican parents Erna and Phillip George, on May 28, 1930 in Boston, Massachusetts. On December 5, 1930, Seaga was baptized in Kingston's Anglican Parish Church. He went to the primary schools in Kingston and St. James, and attended secondary school in Kingston.
His foray into politics began in 1959 when he became a member of the appointed Legislative Council. His speech on the topic 'The Haves and Have Nots' left an indelible impression on the legislative assembly.
Between the 1960’s and 1970’s, Seaga was the Minister of Development and Welfare in Sir Alexander Bustamante’s government and served as the Minister of Finance under Hugh Shearer where he was acclaimed as a financial genius. In 1962, he became a Member of Parliament for Western Kingston and in 1974, Seaga was the leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).
In the 1960’s, Seaga was a keen music promoter, and held the West Indies Records Limited (WIRL) label, which he later sold to Byron Lee in 1968.
In the early days of his political career, Seaga was seen as a leftist, but subtly shifted to the right when he succeeded Hugh Shearer to head the JLP in 1974. It was a move aimed at wresting power from Michael Manley’s People's National Party.
For this, Seaga was sorely blamed by his rivals for fuelling civil war in the 1970’s. In 1978 when the prolonged campaign culminating in the October 1980 election gained momentum, Seaga assured Washington and Kingston that Jamaica would side with the United States, diplomatic relations with Cuba would be called off, and the levy on bauxite would be abolished.
Seaga and the JLP romped home with a huge majority in the 1980 election. In 1981, he met with US president Ronald Reagan and together with John Michael Geoffrey Manningham Adams, of Barbados, was instrumental in the Caribbean Basin Initiative sponsored by Reagan.
In 1983, Seaga backed the fall of the Marxist Government in Grenada and the ensuing US invasion of the island. Seaga held snap polls later that year, which Manley's PNP shunned. His party hence won all the parliament seats. Eight independent senators were appointed by Seaga to make up the opposition, as mandated by the Jamaican constitution.
Failure to deliver on his promise of abolishing the bauxite levy cost him US backing, and his national support also nosedived. The US media went ballistic against Seaga and foreign investors made a hasty exit. Widespread rioting in 1987-88, the growing popularity of Michael Manley, and criticism against the government’s ineffectiveness following the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, all led to Seaga’s defeat in the 1989 elections.
Seaga headed the Jamaica Labour Party until January 2005. He tried in vain to regain power from P.J. Patterson, Manley’s successor. He suffered a crushing defeat in the 1993 election, did slightly better in the 1997 election, and nearly won the 2002 election.
However, in 2005 at the age of 74, he resigned as party chief and took up position as a Senior Research Fellow at the University of the West Indies in Mona.
In 1965, Seaga married former Miss Jamaica Marie Constantine and they had three children, Anabella, Andrew, and Christopher. The couple divorced in 1996. Seaga married Carla Vendryes, who was thirty years younger to him, in 1997. A daughter, Gabrielle, was born to them in 2002, when Seaga was 72.
Edward Seaga was the last serving politician to have taken up public life prior to independence.
