Instead, Antigua and Barbuda announced over the weekend that it will hold a referendum within three years to decide whether to become a republic. Gaston Brown, the prime minister, said the move was not “an act of hostility” towards the British crown and admitted most people in the Caribbean nation did not think much of the matter. Jamaica’s prime minister said last year that “there is no doubt that Jamaica should become a democracy.” In addition to the United Kingdom, there are 14 countries, known as Commonwealth realms, that have the British monarch as their head of state. Several are in the Caribbean while five are in the Pacific – New Zealand, Australia, the Solomon Islands, the tiny atoll nation of Tuvalu and Papua New Guinea, where the queen was known in the local pidgin language as ‘Misis Kwin’. Before becoming king, Prince Charles was known in the Creole language as ‘nambawan pikinini blong misis kwin’ – the Queen’s number one, or first-born child.
