( SEE: Can a Young Prime Minister Reform Jamaica’s Old Criminality?) In the process, that reform spirit could spread to neighbors like Trinidad, where violent crime currently outstrips even that of Jamaica. Jamaica needs to attach other constitutional changes, like popular election of Senators, to the largely symbolic break with the monarchy. Jamaica’s real governmental dysfunction doesn’t lie on the throne of England – it resides in the office of Prime Minister and the inordinate executive powers the position holds. Still, “the process of detachment” could be an important democratic exercise, not just for Jamaica but the rest of the region, provided Simpson Miller and the island’s political class show some leadership. Trinidad & Tobago, which also won its independence in 1962, became a republic as early as 1976. Jamaica would hardly be first among the numerous former British colonies in the Caribbean to ditch Her Majesty. “She’s a beautiful lady…a wise lady and a wonderful lady. “I love the Queen,” Simpson Miller declared. Making Jamaica a republic would sever that relationship. Although Jamaica won its independence from British colonial rule in 1962, the Queen has remained the island’s head of state. 6 that she would “initiate the process of detachment” from Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II this year. So for many Jamaicans it was a morale booster when new Prime Minster Portia Simpson Miller announced in her inaugural address on Jan. Their unemployment rate is almost twice that of the Caribbean region as a whole their government is still reeling from a drug kingpin scandal that helped oust the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) from power last month and many are still bummed out by last summer’s shocking false-start disqualification from the world championship’s 100-meter dash by their national hero, the god-like Olympic gold-medal sprinter Usain Bolt. Follow don’t have a lot to celebrate as they mark their golden anniversary of independence this year.