By Horace Helps KINGSTON, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Bruce Golding, who was sworn in as prime minister on Tuesday after his Jamaica Labour Party ended the 18-year reign of the People's National Party, was born to politics. Golding's father, Tacius, was a member of parliament who was first elected to the House of Representatives when Golding was just two years old, according to his campaign biography. When he was just 12, he traveled with his father to political meetings during the 1961 referendum campaign when Jamaica sought independence from the Federation of the West Indies, a grouping born of British colonies in the Caribbean. Golding won his own seat in parliament at 24 years of age, making him the youngest ever elected to the House, and rose rapidly in the JLP, becoming general secretary shortly after Edward Seaga took the leadership in 1974. In Jamaica's general election eight days ago, Golding's JLP won 33 of 60 parliamentary seats, ending the short tenure of Jamaica's first female prime minister, Portia Simpson Miller. Golding, who was sworn in on Tuesday before 6,000 people on the lawn of King's House, the residence of the governor general, pledged to attack crime and corruption. "Corruption in Jamaica is much too easy. It is too risk-free ... Public officials will be impeached and removed from office if they are found guilty of corruption," he said. Now 59, Golding cut his political teeth with the JLP in the 1970s when it was seen as the free-market alternative to the socialist bent of famed leader Michael Manley, who irked the United States by courting Cuba's Fidel Castro. Although pundits say the JLP has moved to the center and now differs little in ideology from the rival PNP, Golding's campaign manifesto called for a more independent central bank, reduction of the huge national debt and establishment of an offshore financial industry. He also said he will seek more police officers to deal with Jamaica's horrendous murder rate, and universal health care for the Caribbean island's 2.8 million people. HEIR APPARENT Golding was long considered the heir apparent to Seaga, but he split with the JLP in the mid-1990s and went off to help found the National Democratic Movement, a third party that never gained traction. He returned to the JLP in 2002 and claimed the leadership when Seaga stepped down after three decades at its helm. Golding blamed his split with the JLP in 1995 in part on political tribalism, the tendency of Jamaicans to identify themselves as either JLP or PNP and vote accordingly. "He was concerned that the history of political tribalism had polarized the society and had prevented the people from uniting behind common goals," his biography says. During the current campaign, Golding pledged to deal with Jamaica's "garrison politics" by giving teeth to a political code of conduct meant to rein in corrupt officials. Garrison politics refers to a unique system of political intimidation set in motion during the 1970s when the two major parties armed local political bosses, who through threats and patronage delivered the entire vote of certain communities to their sponsoring parties. Born on Dec. 5, 1947, in Clarendon, Golding graduated from the University of the West Indies in 1969 with a degree in economics and majored in public administration. He and his wife Lorna have been married for 32 years and are the parents of one son and two daughters.
