Barbados has become the world’s newest republic
- Nearly 400 years after the country became a British colony, Barbados has become the world’s newest republic.
- The Caribbean island nation removed Queen Elizabeth II as the head of the state in a ceremony attended by Prince Charles.
- Dame Sandra Prunella Mason, who was selected to become the first president of Barbados last month, took over as the President of the country.
- Barbados, which is said to have been made a ‘slave society’ by the British, first became an English colony when a ship arrived at the Caribbean in 1625.
- On November 30, 1966, Barbados gained its independence.
- Barbados, however, will continue to be one of the 54 Commonwealth nations.
Barbados
- It is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands.
- It is 34 kilometres (21 miles) in length and up to 23 km (14 mi) in width, covering an area of 432 km2 (167 sq mi).
- Capital: Bridgetown
Barbados preparation to become a Republic
- While the decision to become a Republic is as recent as last year for Barbados, the island has been thinking about the move for decades.
- In 1979, the Cox Commission to attest to the feasibility of the republican system in Barbados was set up.
- The commission, however, had concluded that the public wished to remain under the system of constitutional monarchy.
- In 1998, a constitutional committee had recommended that the country adopt the republican status and end the monarchy.
- In 2003, Barbados changed its final court of appeal from the British Judicial Committee of the Privy Council to the Caribbean Court of Justice.
- On the 50th independence day in 2016, Freundel Stuart, the then prime minister of Barbados, had said that it was time to move from “a monarchical system to a republican form of government”
- On 30 November 2021, Mason replaced Queen Elizabeth as head of state, with Barbados transitioning to a republic.