Progress on Gay Rights in Serbia, With a Catch

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Serbia hardly has a progressive track record on gay rights. So when President Aleksandar Vucic announced this month that he was nominating Ana Brnabic, a 41-year-old, openly lesbian, woman as prime minister, he stunned Serbians and outside observers alike.

Ms. Brnabic — who only entered politics last year when Mr. Vucic named her a minister of public administration and local government — would secure a double first for Serbia, which has never been led by a woman or by someone who is openly gay. The nomination also plays to the canny Mr. Vucic’s political ambitions.

In fact, there is every reason to suspect that the choice of Ms. Brnabic is a decoy move. Mr. Vucic may be trying to calm European concerns as Serbia moves toward membership in the European Union, while he continues to cozy up to Russia and beef up Serbia’s military.

At the same time, a failure by Serbia’s Parliament to approve Ms. Brnabic’s nomination would trigger an early election. It would be Serbia’s third in five years, and with each election, Mr. Vucic has increased his power. When he resigned in March as prime minister to run for the largely ceremonial office of president, there were deep suspicions that he intended to shift the center of power to the presidency and install a puppet as prime minister. His victory on April 2 led to huge street protests in Serbia’s capital, Belgrade.

The nomination will have the backing of 100 members of Parliament who are in Mr. Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party, but 26 more votes are needed to secure a majority. Opposition lawmakers, in a country where about half of the people believe homosexuality is an illness, are balking at approving a lesbian.

Some pro-Russian politicians see her nomination as part of a degenerate Western plot. The chief of the United Serbia party, Dragan Markovic Palma, has objected vehemently, declaring, “Ana Brnabic is not my prime minister.” A vote scheduled for this week has now been delayed.

After she was nominated, Ms. Brnabic said, “If elected in Parliament, I will run the government with dedication and responsibility.” Indeed, if Ms. Brnabic were allowed to exercise the rightful powers of her office and run Serbia’s government, it would send a powerful signal that it is time for Serbia — and the rest of the world — to move beyond old prejudices. But that goal will be sadly compromised if Ms. Brnabic is approved only to become the tool of an autocrat, or discarded to further Mr. Vucic’s sweeping political ambitions.