The death of Queen Eliz­a­beth II has raised the is­sue of re­pub­li­can­ism in the Com­mon­wealth Caribbean as well as in the wider Com­mon­wealth. New­ly elect­ed Aus­tralian Prime Min­is­ter, An­tho­ny Al­banese, a com­mit­ted re­pub­li­can, has de­ferred any hold­ing of a ref­er­en­dum on the is­sue of Aus­tralia be­com­ing a re­pub­lic un­til af­ter he has com­plet­ed his first term as Prime Min­is­ter. In an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Cordelia Lynch, Sky News’ Asia cor­re­spon­dent, post­ed by Sky News on Sep­tem­ber 11, 2022, at 11.29 am UK time, he said that this pe­ri­od is a time to pay trib­ute to Queen Eliz­a­beth II and to show deep re­spect and ad­mi­ra­tion and not to pur­sue “ques­tions about our Con­sti­tu­tion”.

In her analy­sis of the sit­u­a­tion, Cordelia Lynch wrote:

“No mat­ter how Aus­tralia’s re­la­tion­ship with the in­sti­tu­tion may have waned, Mr Al­banese knows there is an en­dur­ing love for Queen Eliz­a­beth II. Any at­tempt to for­mal­ly restart the de­bate around be­com­ing a re­pub­lic could well be viewed as dis­taste­ful and po­lit­i­cal op­por­tunism.”

In the Com­mon­wealth Caribbean, Prime Min­is­ter of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Gas­ton Browne, told ITV News in the UK that he would push for a ref­er­en­dum on be­com­ing a re­pub­lic in about three years. Ac­cord­ing to him:

“This is not an act of hos­til­i­ty or any dif­fer­ence be­tween An­tigua and Bar­bu­da and the monar­chy, but it is the fi­nal step to com­plete that cir­cle of in­de­pen­dence, to en­sure that we are tru­ly a sov­er­eign na­tion.”

Browne would be aware of the fact that in 2018, the An­tigua and Bar­bu­da elec­torate vot­ed against ac­cept­ing the CCJ as its fi­nal court of ap­peal and pre­ferred to re­tain the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of Her Majesty’s Privy Coun­cil (JCPC) in a low-turnout ref­er­en­dum in which on­ly 33 per cent of the elec­torate par­tic­i­pat­ed.

In­deed, Browne would know what the sen­ti­ment on the ground is and by de­fer­ring the ref­er­en­dum un­til af­ter the next gen­er­al elec­tion he can wave it as an elec­tion promise, but he has to be care­ful that the sen­ti­ment on the ground does not mir­ror the sen­ti­ment in the last ref­er­en­dum that failed to re­move the JCPC.

The need for a con­sti­tu­tion­al ref­er­en­dum in Grena­da, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, St Lu­cia, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da and St Kitts-Nevis pro­vides a mea­sure of po­lit­i­cal un­cer­tain­ty in these coun­tries as re­pub­li­can­ism may be re­gard­ed as a de­sire of po­lit­i­cal and in­tel­lec­tu­al elites and not nec­es­sar­i­ly the wish of the elec­torate. The same can be said for Ja­maica where a ref­er­en­dum is al­so re­quired.

At in­de­pen­dence in 1962, there was no such de­sire ad­vanced for ei­ther Ja­maica or Trinidad and To­ba­go. Last week, I er­ro­neous­ly stat­ed that Princess Al­ice had at­tend­ed our in­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions in 1962, when in fact it was Princess Mary, the Princess Roy­al. The er­ror is re­gret­ted and I apol­o­gise.

At those cel­e­bra­tions, there was no hint of com­plet­ing any cir­cle of in­de­pen­dence as it was felt that in­de­pen­dence had al­ready been at­tained. Dr Williams and Dr Capildeo were ef­fu­sive in their gra­cious­ness to­wards Her Majesty at the open­ing of the new Par­lia­ment.

In 1976, Dr Williams was able to take ad­van­tage of the clean sweep of all seats in the 1971 gen­er­al elec­tion for the PNM in or­der to ne­go­ti­ate re­pub­li­can­ism through the Par­lia­ment with the most del­i­cate ne­go­ti­a­tions be­ing held in the Sen­ate among in­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors to en­act the re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion.

On­ly Guyana be­fore T&T, in 1970 af­ter a rigged elec­tion in 1968, and Do­mini­ca right af­ter T&T, in 1978 when it be­came in­de­pen­dent, be­came re­publics. There was a lull in re­pub­li­can sen­ti­ment un­til St Vin­cent and the Grenadines in­clud­ed it in their Con­sti­tu­tion Bill in 2009 that was re­ject­ed by the elec­torate at the re­quired ref­er­en­dum.

How­ev­er, Bar­ba­dos, which, like T&T, has no re­quire­ment for a ref­er­en­dum, was able to be­come a re­pub­lic ow­ing to the fact that the BLP, like the PNM in T&T in 1971, won all of the seats in the House of As­sem­bly in 2018 and the Gov­ern­ment was able to suc­cess­ful­ly ne­go­ti­ate pas­sage of the amend­ment through their Sen­ate.

The main chal­lenge to re­pub­li­can­ism in the wider Com­mon­wealth Caribbean will be in those coun­tries where a post-par­lia­men­tary ref­er­en­dum is re­quired.

Agree­ment and ac­com­moda­tive po­lit­i­cal be­hav­iour among po­lit­i­cal elites can bring about leg­isla­tive change, but turn­ing over the deals of politi­cians to the ver­dict of the peo­ple is a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent sto­ry where ref­er­en­da are con­cerned.