JAMAICA is halfway through the transition to becoming a Republic, according to a top minister.
The next stage to complete the transition will include a Referendum – which is expected to take place after the General Election in September.
The Referendum will give Jamaicans the chance to have their say on the Republic plans
Minister of Legal and Constitutional Affairs, Marlene Malahoo Forte confirmed that the process is well underway and the Constitution (Amendment) (Republic) Bill, 2024 is currently before a Joint Select Committee of Parliament.
“With the Bill in Parliament, we are more than 50 percent along the way,” she said.
“Once the review is complete, the next step is debating and passing the Bill in the House of Representatives.”
Jamaica Republic
King Charles III is currently the head of state in Jamaica and 13 other Commonwealth Realms – countries which are independent from each other but share the same monarch.
In the Caribbean, Charles is also head of state in Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Belize, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines.
In 2022, the Jamaican prime minister Andrew Holness announced Caribbean nation is “moving on” with intentions to become an “independent, developed and prosperous”.
Holness made the comments as he met Prince William and Kate as part of their controversial tour of the Caribbean.
Since then, Jamaica has made some strides towards the plans.
“Truly liberated”
In March 2023, the PM named his 14-member Constitutional Reform Committee (CRC) team, which will guide the country’s move towards being a republic.
Last year, Alando Terrelonge, the State Minister in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, described the potential transition to republic status as Jamaica becoming “truly liberated” in an interview with The Independent.
“We remain hopeful that by 2025 we would have completed those reforms and removed the British monarch as the head of our democracy,” the MP told the newspaper.
“I’ve always maintained that we owe it to our ancestors who fought and died so that we could be free, we owe it to the framers of our constitution, the work done by our national heroes, for Jamaica to now walk as truly liberated and independent,” Terrelonge, told the online newspaper.
The Republic Bill was introduced in Jamaican Parliament in December 2024.
There is a growing republican movement across the region, following Barbados’ highly publicised transition to a republic in November 2021 – which marked the Caribbean nation’s 55th year of independence.
Since then, several Caribbean islands have hinted they may cut ties with the British Monarch as their head of state.
If Jamaica does become the Caribbean’s next republic, the country will follow in the footsteps of other Caribbean countries which opted for a home-grown head of state.
Guyana became a republic in 1970, followed by Trinidad and Tobago in 1976 and Dominica in 1978.