Barbados elected its first-ever president to replace Britain's Queen Elizabeth as head of state, in a decisive step toward shedding the Caribbean island's colonial past. Sandra Mason (born 17 January 1949) was elected late on Wednesday 20th, October, 2021, by a two-thirds vote of a joint session of the country's House of Assembly and Senate. In a statement, the government called her appointment a milestone on its "road to republic." A former jurist who has been governor-general of the island since 2018, Mason was also the first woman to serve on the Barbados Court of Appeals.

Multiple leaders this century have proposed that the country become a republic.

That will finally happen on November 30, 2021, the country's 55th anniversary of independence from Britain, when Mason will be sworn in.

With a population of about 285,000, Barbados is one of the more populous and prosperous Caribbean islands. Once heavily dependent on sugar exports, its economy has diversified into tourism and finance.

Barbados will not be the first former British colony in the Caribbean to become a republic. Guyana took that step in 1970, less than four years after gaining independence from Britain. Trinidad and Tobago followed suit in 1976 and Dominica in 1978.

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