Jamaica’s new PM to cut loose from monarchy – become a republic
Celebration in Kingston
Jamaica is set to loosen colonial ties with Britain by moving to replace the Queen as head of state with a president, the country’s new prime minister has indicated.
Nearly fifty years after independence, Portia Simpson Miller, a charismatic populist who won a landslide election victory last week, said Jamaica would move to cut links with the monarchy and become a republic.
“I love the Queen. She’s a beautiful lady,” Simpson Miller told 10,000 guests on Thursday at the residence of Jamaica’s governor-general, the Queen’s representative on the island. Switching to patois, she added: “But I think time come.”
The move reflects an accelerating drift towards republicanism among Commonwealth Caribbean countries. Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago have both dropped the Queen as head of state, while opting to remain in the Commonwealth…
This week Simpson Miller vowed to introduce reforms to make the Caribbean court of justice the final appeal court in all criminal matters. The move would repatriate Jamaica’s sovereignty fully, she said…
Simpson Miller is genuinely popular and has an unrivalled ability to project empathy with the poor and downtrodden. Her PNP party…now has an unprecedented two-thirds majority in parliament. This is enough for her to change the constitution and a win a vote to convert Jamaica into a republic. Then, she has to put her plan to a popular referendum…
Dumping allegiance to a monarch is only a couple centuries overdue. The economic shackles to the UK have been sufficiently weakened since the end of World War 2. It’s about time the intellectual and political shackles were also thrown off.
