Bar­ba­dos is set to have a new head of state, as Prime Min­is­ter Mia Amor Mot­t­ley and Op­po­si­tion Leader Ralph Thorne to­day signed the of­fi­cial doc­u­ments nom­i­nat­ing for­mer health min­is­ter and re­tired mil­i­tary of­fi­cer, Lieu­tenant Colonel Jef­frey Bostic, to be the is­land’s sec­ond pres­i­dent.

The agree­ment was reached yes­ter­day and for­malised this morn­ing at Par­lia­ment, with the no­tice sub­mit­ted to Deputy Speak­er of the House of As­sem­bly Neil Rowe for an­nounce­ment. Par­lia­ment is ex­pect­ed to vote on the nom­i­na­tion in Oc­to­ber. If rat­i­fied, Bostic will be sworn in on No­vem­ber 30, the an­niver­sary of Bar­ba­dos be­com­ing a re­pub­lic in 2021. His ap­point­ment will fol­low the com­ple­tion of Pres­i­dent Dame San­dra Ma­son’s term, which ends on No­vem­ber 29.

Known to Bar­ba­di­ans as “The Colonel,” Bostic rep­re­sent­ed the City of Bridgetown from 2013 to 2022 and earned wide­spread re­spect for his lead­er­ship of the na­tion­al COVID-19 re­sponse.