Barbados to become a republic in 2021
Barbados will become a republic by the island’s 55th anniversary of independence in November 2021 removing Britain’s Queen Elizabeth as head of state.
Reading the speech written byPrime Minister Mia Mottley, Governor-General Dame Sandra Mason made the announcement at the opening of a new parliamentary session.
“The time has come to fully leave our colonial past behind. Barbadians want a Barbadian Head of State. This is the ultimate statement of confidence in who we are and what we are capable of achieving. Hence, Barbados will take the next logical step toward full sovereignty and become a Republic by the time we celebrate our 55th Anniversary of Independence.”
After gaining Independence in 1966, the idea and of becoming a republic has been on the table.
A Barbados constitutional review commission had recommended republican status in 1998 but it was not carried over after the general election in 2003.
The nation took the first step towards independence from the UK in 2003 when it replaced the London-based Judicial Committee of the Privy Council with the Caribbean Court of Justice, located in Trinidad and Tobago’s Port of Spain, as its final appeals court.
In 2015, then Prime Minister Freundel Stuart said “we have to move from a monarchical system to a republican form of government in the very near future”.
If all the plan goes accordingly, Barbados it will join Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and Dominica as the fourth English-speaking CARICOM republic.
Full coverage of the re-opening of Barbados parliament 2020 courtesy of Barbados GIS: