By Neil Marks in Malta

BARONESS Patricia Scotland, the Dominica-born woman who enjoyed a high-flying career along the corridors of power in the United Kingdom, was Friday selected as the Secretary-General of the 53-nation Commonwealth.

She was selected for the post at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting here in Malta in a process mediated by the Prime Minister of Malta Joseph Muscat.
Baroness Scotland, when she takes up her post next April, will be the sixth Commonwealth Secretary-General and the first woman to take up the post, the Commonwealth Secretariat said.
“The Commonwealth shares a great deal. It has 33 per cent of the world’s population. It has the capacity to bring together people of all religions; concentrate on what joins us. It’s a real opportunity to invest and work together.

“If you work together with people respectfully, you can bring about change. Human rights and development go hand in hand,” she said after the announcement was made.
President David Granger said Guyana was ready to support the Baroness, even though she was not the candidate initially favoured. Guyana was backing Antigua and Barbuda’s nominee Sir Ronald Sanders, a Guyanese by birth.
“It was a clean clear process in which I participated and we are committed to working with the Secretary General for the improvement of the Commonwealth,” President Granger said shortly after the announcement was made.
“I am assured that the Commonwealth’s decision is going to receive the support of the member states and this is the way forward.
“We are looking to the future and we believe that the Commonwealth must rally round its Secretary-General, regardless of the process.
Scotland was born in Dominca, but her family left for the UK when she was three years old.
She was called to the Bar in 1977 and when she was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1991, she became the first Black woman to do so.
Baroness Scotland also became the UK’s first black Attorney General when she was appointed in 2007 and then in 1999 she was made the first black woman to serve as a government minister in the UK.