ABSTRACT
The 1983 election was in some ways an amalgam of features found in previous elections; in other ways, an unprecedented partisan confrontation. It brings to mind the "snap" election of 1967 and Norman Manley's condemnation of that three-week campaign as a "rape of democracy". Never before in Jamaica's history had a prime minister had as close and harmonious a relationship with an American president as did Seaga with Ronald Reagan. By far the most important area of United States-Jamaican cooperation and collaboration was the isolation, harassment, and finally invasion of Grenada by the United States and six Caribbean allies. It is difficult to name a more decisive factor in the timing and outcome of the 1983 campaign than the invasion. One of the major economic problems Jamaica faced was the sharp decline in the bauxite market; as mentioned before, bauxite production is Jamaica's primary foreign exchange earner.
