Ana Brnabić has become acting president of Serbia, making her the first out gay woman to serve as president of an East European Balkan country. A ceremony making her president occurred on Monday at the presidential residence in central Belgrade.
“It is a great honor for me to receive this position from such a person, and now it is my duty to hold this office until the people elect the next president of Serbia,” Brnabić said after the official handover of power.
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Brnabić ascended to the position following the Sunday resignation of the country’s now-former President Aleksandar Vučić amid protests against corruption, the BBC reported. However, she will likely serve for a short period since the country’s constitution requires presidential elections to occur within three months of such a resignation.
Brnabić, a member of the Serbian Progressive Party, served as the country’s prime minister from June 29, 2017 until March 20, 2024, when she became president of the National Assembly, the country’s parliament.
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“Serbia is changing and changing fast, and if you will, I am part of that change, but I do not want to be branded ‘Serbia’s gay PM,’” she told a foreign newspaper when she became prime minister. “The message we need to send is about competence, professionalism and trustworthiness.”
Homosexuality is legal in Serbia. The country has laws banning anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination in employment, housing, education, and the media. It also allows transgender individuals to change their legal gender documentation, but requires a psychiatric diagnosis and hormone therapy beforehand.
But when she became the country’s first woman prime minister (and its first out gay one), she said she didn’t want to pursue LGBTQ+ legal reforms, like the right to legalized same-sex marriage.
“The reason why I am not focused on that now is because I deeply, truly believe Serbia will be a more tolerant society once people have jobs, better paid jobs, don’t have to care about their own livelihood, or the future of their own children, and do not have to worry about two or three generations living in the same flat,” she said.
She said she didn’t consider Serbia to be homophobic despite different attitudes across the country, and said that journalists who had asked central Serbian villagers about her sexuality responded, “Well, listen, in this part of Serbia we grow raspberries, fruit and vegetables, and we do not grow discrimination.”
“The citizens of Serbia have a right not to be portrayed by a loud minority,” she added. “We can have a culture where we disagree, as long as there is tolerance and no violence. We all have different views and values, but I don’t want to change people’s thinking by law.”
Brnabić is the first person in the country to have held all three of the highest political offices—prime minister, speaker of parliament, and acting president—UAnews.com reported. She is expected to continue pursuing Vučić’s ambitions for Serbia to join the European Union while warming relationships with Russia and Chinese investors.
Vučić cannot run for a third term as president, because of constitutional law. However, he may try to become the parliament’s next speaker.
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