Barbados decides to dump the queen
The path to becoming a republic is not always smooth
WHEN SANDRA MASON gave her annual “throne speech” to open Barbados’s Parliament on September 15th, she proposed the abolition of her own job. As the country’s governor-general she represents Queen Elizabeth II, its head of state. From November next year, in time for the 55th anniversary of independence from Britain, Barbados will be a republic, Dame Sandra declared. “The time has come to fully leave our colonial past behind,” she said. “Barbadians want a Barbadian head of state.”
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline “Bajan bye-bye”
From the September 19th 2020 edition
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