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 by Prime Minister Mia Mottley, Governor-General Dame Sandra Mason made the announcement at the opening of a new parliamentary session.
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. (https://thecaribbeannewsnow.com/barbados-to-become-a-republic-in-2021/)
