Opposition reacts: From "capitulation" to "sultanate"

Opposition reacts: From "capitulation" to "sultanate"

A non-partisan figure at the helm of Serbia's government is the choice of Aleksandar Vucic, who recently stepped down as prime minister in order to take over as the country's president.

In modern-day Serbia, a similar scenario was seen when then President Boris Tadic chose Mirko Cvetkovic - "a civilian" - i.e., a person with no party affiliation.

The first opposition leader to react to Vucic's announcement on Thursday was Dveri's Bosko Obradovic, who took to Twitter to say that the West trusts Brnabic more than Vucic.

"That' why the president must make the proposal the West has ordered him to make. It seems he didn't have much of a say in the matter. Did he hear some explanation as to why Ana Brnabic is a good solution for PM? It probably felt stupid to say this way not his choice, but someone else's," Obradovic wrote.

The head of the New Serbia - Movement for Serbia's Salvation parliamentary group, Sanda Raskovic-Ivic, said that picking Brnabic meant that Vucic "capitulated to Washington," and added: "For months we've watched Mrs. Brnabic run humanitarian campaigns, sweepstakes, hand out apartment keys. That was done to profile and promote her."

DSS leader Milos Jovanovic says that he sees nothing that qualifies Brnabic for the job.

"I hope nobody was guided by the fact that the personality of Ana Brnabic corresponds to today's definition of political correctness," Jovanovic has been quoted as saying by the DSS Twitter account. The DS also reacted, with a statement signed by leader Dragan Sutanovac, who concluded that Serbia was becoming "a sultanate."

"The information about the name that will take over the office of prime minister is completely irrelevant, because for five years now, the role of prime minister, and president, and commander in chief, and coordinator of (security) services, and savior from the floods, and tunnel truck driver, has been performed by only one man, who is the only one deciding on the fate of this nation. A sultanate is being established in or country, where there is one sultan and many veziers, Ana Brnabic among them," Sutanovac said.

He added that "the information about the name" is merely one revealing "who will take responsibility for Vucic's unrealized promises."

LDP leader Cedomir Jovanovic has left the door open to cooperation with the future prime minister - but only if she "knows how to tell the difference between Brussels and Moscow - by defining our country's European future as a priority."

Future cooperation will also depend, he continued, on Brnabic's ability to "untie the Gordian knot in the region, from Bosnia and Kosovo to Croatia," which represents "a precondition to pull Serbia out of the 1990s quicksand."

Former cabinet minister and presidential candidate Sasa Radulovic wrote on Twitter that presidents do not choose PM-designates "anywhere in the regulated world" - instead, according to him, this is done by parliamentary majorities.