Thursday, October 21, 2021

Barbados Elects First President as It Prepares to Drop Queen as Head of State

THE GUARDIAN: Caribbean nation elects governor general to new role prior to former British colony becoming a republic

Dame Sandra Mason, the governor-general of Barbados, will replace the Queen as the island’s head of state.Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA

Barbados has elected its first president with just weeks to go until the Caribbean island becomes a republic and ceases to recognise Queen Elizabeth as its head of state.

The island’s governor general, Dame Sandra Mason, was elected almost unanimously by the former British colony’s parliament on Wednesday, with only one member declining to vote.

Mason, a 72-year-old judge and former ambassador, will be sworn in on 30 November, the 55th anniversary of her country’s independence from Britain in 1966.

The prime minister, Mia Mottley, hailed what she called a historic landmark for the island of about 290,000 inhabitants. “How can anyone deny the rightness of the moment?” Mottley said, according to the Barbadian newspaper the Nation. » | Tom Phillips | Thursday, October 21, 2021

Barbados Elects Its First Head of State, Replacing Queen Elizabeth: The country’s Parliament chose Sandra Mason, the governor general, to assume the symbolic title, a decisive move to distance itself from Barbados’s colonial past. »