Jamaica has officially begun the process of becoming a republic that could see Queen Elizabeth removed as Jamaica’s head of state in 2025.
The head of the Caribbean nation’s legal ministry confirmed to its parliament that the process needed to remove Her Majesty will begin soon, with the aim of it being completed before the next election.
This comes after the island’s Prime Minister spoke with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge about the issue during their Caribbean tour earlier this year.
Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness awkwardly told them his country was ‘moving on’ from the monarchy.
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In 2020, a poll indicated more than half of Jamaicans would vote to remove the Queen as head of state if given the choice.
Marlene Malahoo Forte QC, head of the Ministry of Legal and Constitutional Affairs on the island nation, told its parliament on Tuesday the move would show Jamaica’s ‘self-determination and cultural heritage’, The National reports.
She said: ‘The goal is to ultimately produce a new Constitution of Jamaica, enacted by the Parliament of Jamaica, to inter alia, establish the Republic of Jamaica as a parliamentary republic, replacing the constitutional monarchy, and affirming our self-determination and cultural heritage.
‘I am pleased to advise this honourable House that the work to achieve this goal, while being done in stages, has formally commenced.’
She added that a cross-party committee would be set up to look into the exact form the new constitution should take.
Ms. Malahoo Forte added: ‘The reform work to be done in order to achieve the goal of a new constitution requires cooperation between the government and the parliamentary opposition, as well as the seal of the people.’
There is now a growing desire to remove the Queen as head of state in the country, which became independent from Britain in 1962.
Back In November, fellow Caribbean nation Barbados transitioned into being a republic, replacing Her Majesty with an elected President.
Guyana, Dominica, and Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean removed her as head of state in the 1970s, while Mauritius in the Indian Ocean declared itself a republic in 1992.
