Barbados made headlines in 2021 for becoming a republic, it felt like a seminal moment in our history given our storied colonial past. We were meant to say goodbye to the KING, install a locally bred President, and to declare to the world that we were truly charting our own course. We also appointed international POP diva and businesswoman Rihanna as a national hero. Here we are — nearly four years later — and many are still asking the same question: what exactly has changed? The answer, unfortunately, is very little has changed. Our collective actions since are not aligned to our lofty aspirations.
We have the power to define ourselves and to shape our destiny. This is the spirit of independence—this is the spirit of the republic.
Prime Minister Mia Mottley
All.we did was swap out one ceremonial figurehead for another. The Constitution, the real engine of how a country runs, was amended to legally note the change to republic status BUT has had no ‘operational’ change. No real structural reform, no wide-scale public consultation, no effort to actually involve the people in shaping a new governance model fit for a post-colonial, 21st-century democracy.Whatever that means.
Instead, what we got was a quick constitutional edit — King Charles’s name out, President Husbands’ name in — and then the sound of silence. We have not seen any event changing structural initiatives to construct a transformative republic.
Prime Minister Mottley has pointed to ongoing parliamentary reform which was finally ‘debated’ in the Lower House last week, however, that also feels like the government doesn’t have serious parliamentary reform as a priority in the same way that it did for introducing tint laws. It is true that a relevant parliament is important, however, reforming parliament without addressing the NEW Constitution seems an assbackwards move.
There appears to be no public timeline, no continuous meaningful engagement with Barbadians- do not dare to mention those stuffy, sterile town halls designed to intimidate the small man, and no proper explanation of how parliamentary reform connects to our ‘paper’ republic status. Barbadians are going about daily tasks oblivious to the spirit of independence of the republic. Meanwhile the Mottley government continues to procrastinate on the effective implementation of a new Constitution.
Let’s be real: Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s government had all the momentum in the world after the republic announcement in 2021. She has been given a historic mandate, a strong international profile, and the goodwill of Barbadians at home and in the diaspora. If ever there was a time to launch bold constitutional reform initiative, it was in 2022. Instead of action, we have gotten the usual silence, like what is happening with the CoopEnery project. Instead of engagement, we got the usual implementation deficit mindset. And instead of empowering Barbadians to help shape a new republic, the government chose the safest route — do less with more, a betrayal of Mottley’s politically motivated mantra – more hands make light work.
What does this say about the Mottley government’s commitment? It says that the republic was never really about transformation. It was about optics. It was about headlines. It was about telling the world we are independent, we produced the POPULAR Rihanna without doing the hard internal work to make the dream work for Barbadians.This is the danger when symbolism replaces substance, democracy as we aspire it to be is compromised. When reforms are delayed or buried in bureaucracy, public trust erodes.
If Barbados is serious about becoming a real republic — not just in name, but in how we govern — we need more than flowery speeches. We need a transparent, participatory, and bold constitutional reform process. Until then the Mottley led government’s commitment to republicanism remains more about symbolisation than substance.
Are we there yet?
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