The woman who led Barbados in its brave leap forward

Photo by Johnmartindavies – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25207220

The truth about Barbados’s transition to a republic is as follows: It wouldn’t have happened without Mia Mottley.

Barbados’s prime minister has a massive parliamentary majority, a clear idea about the need to dump the monarchy and is not worried about giving democratic legitimacy to a new head of state, who could become a political rival.

In fact, one of the reasons that Queen Elizabeth II remains head of state of 14 former colonies — eight in the Caribbean, three Pacific islands, Australia, Canada and New Zealand — could very well be their lack of a Mia Mottley.

And then there is political inertia, indecision and jealousy over the transition to a republican system. In the Caribbean and Pacific territories that tug their forelock at the Queen, the British monarch fills the role of head of state. That’s convenient for heads of government who don’t necessarily want a head of state wi…