Ana Brnabic keeps the hand in Serbia. The outgoing prime minister was tasked on Saturday by the Serbian president, for the third time in a row, with forming a new government, nearly five months after the elections won by the presidential party in early April.
“It is very important that she remains at the head of the government so that we can continue to solve problems”, declared the head of state, proposing the name of Ana Brnabic, 46, to the vote of the Parliament . “It is very important that someone who is experienced and whom I fully trust can take on this task at this time,” added Aleksandar Vucic.
The president’s hold on power
Parliament’s vote should only be a formality since the presidential formation, the Serbian Progress Party (SNS), has 120 seats out of 250 in the National Assembly, and while Aleksandar Vucic announced the participation in the government of Ivica Dacic, president of the Socialist Party, which has 31 deputies.
Although the post of president is largely ceremonial in Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic is often accused of authoritarian tendencies by human rights organizations, while his critics claim that the role of his prime ministers is only to echo its own policy.
The Head of State also immediately let it be known that Ana Brnabic would not remain in office for four years and that the new government would undergo “changes” in 2024. Nevertheless, Ana Brnabic, first appointed in 2017 , will become the first head of the Serbian government to begin a third term, since the reinstatement of a multiparty system in the early 1990s.
A political leader rather than a “gay prime minister”
She is also the first woman to head the government in the history of Serbia and also the first openly homosexual person to hold these positions in this country of 7 million inhabitants and where homophobia remains widespread. But she has been criticized for not more vigorously advocating for the rights of the LGBTQ community.
The Prime Minister’s companion gave birth to a boy in 2019. A few months later, artificial insemination was banned in Serbia for couples with a “recent history of same-sex relationships”. Serbia does not legally recognize same-sex couples or same-sex parenthood. Ana Brnabic had also stressed in the past that her mission was not to be “a gay Prime Minister”, but a political leader.
On Saturday, the Serbian President announced, in consultation with the Prime Minister, the cancellation of Europride, a large annual gathering of the LGBTQ community scheduled for September in Belgrade, justifying this decision by the crisis in Kosovo and other issues. which concern the Serbian authorities.