The Barbadian parliament voted last month to replace Queen Elizabeth II with Mason, allowing the country to finally move beyond its history as the oldest colony of the British Empire.
The monarch has been its head of state for almost 400 years, despite the island having secured its independence from the UK in 1966. Mason launched a campaign in 2020 to make Barbados a republic, declaring that “Barbadians want a Barbadian head of state.”
“Having attained independence over half a century ago, our country can be in no doubt about its capacity for self-governance. The time has come to fully leave our colonial past behind,” Mason told NBC News in September, in defense of the campaign.
