Posted on 09/16/2020 10:37:42 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
I bet they’d have done it by now (talking about it forever) but it’s a pain in the butt figure out how you want the President elected and what kind of powers he has.
They would probably go the way of India and the other commonwealth countries that replaced the Queen as head of state.
The President in India is basically the Governor-general - little voice in the governing.
They already have a governor-general in Barbados who is appointed by the queen “on advice from the PM of Barbados” - so really no difference in cost or much of a change in procedure
Well it was good enough for us to do the same.
It’s a pretty silly system.
The PM is appointed by the GG but the GG has no choice in the matter (baring unusual circumstances) and must appoint the winner of the election.
The GG is appointed by the Queen, but she must appoint whomever the PM advises her to pick. “Advise” in this sense of the word is binding.
So the PM chooses the person who gets to appoint the PM. LOL.
Anyway, I read a lot of Caribbean republicans are scared of what happened in Trinidad and Tobago in the 2001 when the election was a tie and the President (with more powers and more legitimacy than a Governor-General to make choices) got to choose the PM and the loser shut down parliament. Sounds like that set back the cause in other countries.
You are right about a referendum, St. Vincent had one ‘09 and it failed by about 12 points. I’m sure it wouldn’t pass in Barbados, not until Chuck is on the throne anyway.
Good thing we didn’t wait to have a vote back in 1776.
A lot of people were indifferent, would have been a fun race. ;-P
But the thing is that this isn’t about independence or not - Barbados is fully independent. It has a Queen, the Queen of Barbados who is Elizabeth, but the UK has no constitutional role in Barbados.
Going by the “Republic, not a Democracy!” crowd’s redefinition of the word “Republic” , apparently this means Barbados now “ensures the rights of the individual will be protected” for the first time ever.
I think it works that way in all British "commonwealth" nations that are independent and self-governing but still nominally under the "rule" of the Queen as Head of State.
As I recall, Australia had a "Constitution Crisis" in 1975 for that exact reason: the Prime Minister and Governor General had a hissy fit and decided to simultaneously "dismiss" each other from their post (the unpopular Prime Minister refused to resign so the Governor-General used his "reserve emergency powers" to remove him on his own, and the Prime Minister decided to stop that by firing the Governor-General first). This cause the country to end up in political limbo, so they did indeed send word to the Queen in the UK that they were in a stalemate over who exactly is "in change" in Australia.
I believe Her Majesty's office simply ignored it, and issued a statement that it was up to Australia to resolve on their own.
What about Meaghan Markle?
Dukess of Excess will send photos of bananas inscribed Sharpie platitudes, “Be Brave” “Courage” etc, just as she did for African sex workers.
Actually staffers do all the work, she poses for the self righteous photo op.
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