Barbados removed a monarch. Now it must choose its digital master. Election victories are no longer just political. They are digital.
Barbados voted decisively. The Bahamas is also brewing close behind with election signs.
In The Bahamas, billboards are rising along highways, candidates are being ratified, and the language of momentum has returned to political speeches. Barbados has already delivered a commanding third term to Prime Minister Mia Mottley, just a year after becoming a republic. The symbolism is thick. Constitutional sovereignty affirmed and political authority consolidated.
Governments across the region are digitising, and FAST. Public registries, customs systems, immigration databases, procurement platforms, tax administration, and Digital ID. Artificial intelligence (AI) is creeping into policy conversations, workflow, and decision-making. Pressure for increased efficiency is echoed across ministries.
Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis recently warned that artificial intelligence must not deepen economic disparities, referencing a national dialogue on AI and digital adoption. The concern was not abstract. AI systems are already shaping how information flows, how services are delivered, how small businesses compete, and how economies grow. Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley urged the creation of a regional AI policy, stressing the need for Caribbean nations to confront their threats to democracy. If those systems are owned, hosted, and governed elsewhere, where does that leave small island states?
Barbados’ transition to a republic removed a distant sovereign. Yet most Caribbean governments still run their digital nervous systems on infrastructure headquartered thousands of miles away. Data sits offshore. Critical platforms are licensed rather than owned. Updates are dictated by foreign roadmaps and Big Tech. Jurisdiction becomes blurred the moment a cyber incident crosses borders.
The European Union has begun pushing back. France recently announced plans to reduce reliance on major US-based collaboration platforms in favour of sovereign alternatives, a stance increasingly echoed by local governments and ministries in Germany and Austria. The message is not anti-technology. It is pro-control. Sovereign Control.
The Caribbean faces the same question with fewer margins for error.
Election season brings it into focus. Campaigns promise modernisation. Faster services. Digital transformation. Innovation hubs. Smart government. Yet modernization without autonomy can hardwire dependency into the state itself. A country can hold free elections and still outsource the machinery of governance.
The Bahamas sits at an interesting moment. The last time a governing party secured consecutive terms was the FNM’s “Two Straight” victory in 1992. A repeat mandate now would unfold in a very different environment. AI is no longer theoretical. Digital infrastructure is as consequential as ports or airports. Cybersecurity is national security. Cabinet portfolios increasingly include digital transformation not as an accessory, but as a core economic lever.
The Mottley administration’s re-election provides continuity for digital transformation and sufficient time to turn ambition into lasting change. Equally, whoever forms the next government in The Bahamas will inherit not only fiscal decisions but also digital ones.
The risk is subtle to untrained eyes. Digital colonialism does not arrive with flags. It arrives with service agreements and software updates. It embeds itself quietly in procurement cycles and default settings. It scales faster than legislation can keep pace.
The region is entering an era where campaign rhetoric will intersect with server architecture. National resilience depends as much on cybersecurity posture as on fiscal reserves. Where independence will be measured not only by who governs, but by who controls the systems that make governance possible.
Barbados has shown that transformation can thrive through continuity. The Bahamas may soon test whether that trend follows. Across the Caribbean, the deeper question lingers: