Economy Drags Jamaica Leader Down in Polls : Politics: Apathy runs high among the voters. The ruling party trails as country looks to elections in 1994.

An economic slump has undercut support for Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley and led to growing apathy among the island’s voters, according to opinion polls and political analysts.

Even Manley admits that if elections were held today, his People’s National Party probably would lose. But he dismisses that possibility as the result of a natural midterm slump and believes the economy will rebound, restoring voters’ faith before elections due in 1994.

Political sociologist and pollster Carl Stone says the prime minister’s optimism is misplaced. He believes that voters have lost faith in Manley’s ability and that the opposition Jamaica Labor Party is virtually assured of a landslide in the next elections.

The charismatic Manley is probably better liked than his chief rival, JLP leader Edward Seaga. But Seaga is seen as a more competent manager, Stone said.

However, Stone’s most recent poll surprised even him. Manley’s party, which had slipped to record lows in the last few months, now lags only two percentage points behind the opposition JLP, which leads 32% to 30%. A full 38% of voters were uncommitted.

And as many as four in 10 voters are apathetic and fed up with both parties, Stone’s polls have found.

“There’s a tremendous wave of cynicism and anomie,” agreed Barbara Gloudon, a radio talk show host and playwright whose latest script is filled with satire about Jamaican politics and the economy.

“People are resentful. Sixty (Jamaican) dollars used to buy two chickens. Now $60 can’t even buy one,” she said.

On the street corners and patios of Kingston, people across class lines voiced similar complaints.

“I don’t think things are getting better,” said Steven, 20, who was trained as a welder but hasn’t been able to find a steady job in the three years since he finished vocational school.

“I just want to leave this place. I want to go to America or Canada or England.”

Whether Manley, 67, remains his party’s standard-bearer is uncertain. He suffered from prostate cancer and severe pneumonia in 1990 and rumors surface periodically that he will step down early for health reasons.

In a recent interview with foreign reporters, Manley said he was feeling fit, but he was coy about his plans.

“A political leader must have a sense of when younger people must have a chance,” he said with a smile. But he declined to say when he would give them that chance.

“It will be by my choice. Nobody is trying to force me out,” he said.

A corruption scandal that ensnared one of the younger PNP leaders, P. J. Patterson, also raises doubts about who will inherit Manley’s mantle.

Some PNP members now favor Finance Minister Hugh Small as heir-apparent, but political analysts do not rule out a comeback by Patterson, who left Manley’s Cabinet in a shake-up in January but still holds a powerful position in the party.

Although analysts say corruption scandals have weakened Manley’s government, almost everyone agrees that Jamaica’s economic crisis is by far the most important element in the political jockeying.

“The bottom line is jobs and the cost of living,” Stone said.

As part of a sweeping liberalization of the economy, Manley’s government eliminated foreign exchange controls in September. The result has been a sharp devaluation of the currency, a record 82% inflation rate for last year, and unemployment and underemployment that economists estimate at 20% to 25%.

Some economists expect matters to get worse before they get better, but Manley believes the worst is nearly over.

“We’re at the end of a very, very difficult process of structural adjustment. There’s a lot of social pressure as a result,” the prime minister said.

No one suggests that those pressures threaten serious social unrest. But many Jamaicans do speak of increasing apathy, cynicism and disillusionment.

In 1989 elections, voters turned against Seaga.

“He dealt with money, not with people,” Stone said. “They (voters) fired Seaga largely for those reasons. Manley they thought was a more humane socialist politician.”

But Manley is not the impassioned socialist of the 1960s and ‘70s. Like Seaga, he imposed an austerity program to comply with International Monetary Fund agreements and embraced the free market.

“The poor feel cheated,” Stone said. “They feel no one is talking for them.”