Coore

Having held anticolonial views since his early teens, it seemed destiny played a part in 36-year-old lawyer David Coore being selected as a member of the team to draft independent Jamaica's constitution in 1961.

Coore, now 84, and Edward Seaga are the only survivors from that historic team. Recently, he told The Gleaner that he had been against British rule since 1938 when he was a 13-year-old student at Jamaica College (JC) and followed the labour stand-off at the Frome sugar factory in Westmoreland.

"From then I was an ardent believer in Jamaica getting out of colonialism. The riots really made a mark on me," Coore said.

The elder of two sons, Coore was born in Anchovy, St James, where his father, Clarence, worked as an accountant.

His political seed was sown during visits to the home of Norman Manley, founding president of the People's National Party (PNP) and father of Michael Manley, his best friend at JC.

He said he followed the road to Independence in the 1940s while he was at McGill University in Canada, where he read for an economics degree, and later at Oxford in England, where he studied law.

Coore was admitted to the Jamaican bar shortly after his return home in 1951, the year he joined the PNP. Ten years later, he was one of the members from the Legislative Council selected to draft the Constitution for an independent Jamaica, a process headed by his mentor, Norman Manley.

"It was a continuing of the political process. There was the granting of universal adult suffrage in 1943, then the granting of self-government in the 1950s," Coore explained. "In 1961, we looked at matters dealing with citizenship, defence and foreign policy."

Coore was not in Jamaica for the actual Independence ceremony in August 1962. He was on vacation in Europe with his Trinidad-born wife, Rita, and their three sons.

He was chairman of the PNP when Michael Manley was elected to succeed his father as the party's leader in 1969. After Manley became prime minister in 1972, Coore was appointed minister of finance and planning, a post he held until 1978 when he resigned to take up a job with the Inter-American Development Bank.

Jamaica has done well

Coore currently lives in St Andrew with Maria, his fourth wife. He believes Jamaica has done well since gaining Independence.

"Small as we are, we are respected in international circles. In terms of culture and sports, our flag is held high," he said. "We have not succeeded in achieving an egalitarian society but there has been a high level of upward mobility, mainly because of the social legislation of the 1970s."

Coore points to economic stagnation as the biggest negative.

"We have not been able to sustain economic growth, certainly not as successfully as Barbados and the Dominican Republic," he said.