If he had first dreamed, and then "drawn with chalk" the person who will succeed him in the prime minister's chair, Aleksandar Vučić would hardly have drawn someone more adequate than Ana Brnabić. Because, during one year of her prime ministerial mandate, she successfully proved that she is not a "ficus" as she was unofficially called, but an active and notable participant in Vučić's theater of absurdities, deceptions and spins, a perfect agent of his political-propaganda calculation.
On any topic - from the economy to media freedom - it was Brnabić who repeated the president's theses until exhaustion, who followed his every step like a shadow, explained what he did not have the time or nerve to explain, all with with the idea to further emphasize the bravado of the main actor.
"I KNOW WHAT ANA THINKS AND WHAT WANTS": The last in a series of such performances by the Prime Minister was the statement on pensions. After the Mission of the International Monetary Fund suggested to the government representatives to cancel the crisis measures for pensioners, i.e. the famous Law on the Temporary Reduction of Pensions, on May 11 the Prime Minister reacted quickly: "We cannot just return pensions, as the IMF requests, to the previous level." Because that would mean that you are reducing pensions for 80 percent of pensioners." In her interpretation, therefore, the repeal of the measures from the Law on Reduction of Pensions means a further reduction of pensions. Minus and plus give an even bigger minus.
The same bizarre and incomprehensible story has been put forward many times by the president himself, and economist Danilo Šuković vividly defined all this in "Danas" from Tuesday, May 15, saying that "he has not heard a bigger nebula for a long time."
In this case, and otherwise, Brnabić's problem is that her performance is simply not on par with Vučić's. When the president utters falsehoods, it may even seem true to an uninitiated person: his facial expression, facial expressions, sentence structure, all point to the conclusion that he simply believes what he is saying. The Prime Minister, on the other hand, seems like someone who learned a bad text badly, so now she doesn't even know how to get out of it: he came up with an incredible construction about pensions, and she says it because she has no other.
Such a division of roles was perhaps most obvious in the case of the presentation of new reproductive policy measures. In one of his historic speeches on March 17, 2018, Vučić promised significant financial assistance to women in labor, help in the process of artificial insemination, improvement of labor rights of women in labor, with reference to border defense, the Iron Regiment and the White Plague.
Although such measures fall directly within the domain of the Government and its President, the speech was given by Vučić, and the Prime Minister was not even at the event. Asked why she did not attend the press conference, she said that there was no need for it, and that it was important for the president to address the public: "It was important, because it is not a political issue, but a matter of national importance," explained Brnabić. semi-skillfully avoiding the far more obvious questions about the crazy and totally botched measures. In spite of all this, Brnabić - as a citizen, as a lesbian and as a woman without children - had to react at least to Vučić's story about the selfishness of women and men who do not give birth. Not to mention that, as the Prime Minister directly responsible for payments from the budget, she should inevitably be present at the moment when the President explains what the budget money will be spent on.
In a topic from her domain, she acted like an accidental guest, a willful traveler.
This, of course, was not the first situation in which Brnabić bowed down as not befitting her position. Let's remind you, she started her mandate by bending down.
Just a few days after she was appointed prime minister, Brnabić gave an interview to the Bloomberg agency, in which she said that "it is completely clear that we are going to the EU", and which the editor "refined" a little and put in the title "If she has to choose, Serbia will opt for the EU instead of Russia". The uproar over that statement has not yet subsided, and a hurricane has arrived from Moscow: the spokeswoman for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, said that the American agency misinterpreted the words of the Serbian Prime Minister and that she proved this to Ambassador Aleksandr Chepurin through the transcript of the interview given to him. delivered personally.
At the same time, since Zakharova previously commented much more calmly on the disputed interview (saying that "it is optimal to be with one and the other"), it was clear that the initiative for "washing" and sprinkling ashes came not from the Kremlin, but from Nemanjina or Pionirski park.
To make matters worse, nothing resembling concrete support came from the presidential cabinet on that occasion. After being attacked from all sides (Vesna Pešić said that no one had humiliated Serbia so much, and Minister Zorana Mihajlović said that the transcript should have been brought before the Government), Vučić distanced himself from the whole event as if it were peripheral topics: "No I know if anyone provided any transcripts. Nor am I interested in that," he pointed out, noting that he knows "what Ana thinks, knows what she wants" and that "Serbia is on the European road."
By the way, at every performance, in front of any audience, the president always addresses the prime minister only as "Ana", which represents an additional degradation of her otherwise degraded position.
"THE HARDEST DAY": In addition to the statement about pensions, Prime Minister Brnabić recently also expressed herself in the episode with the gay picture book. Namely, after picture books about same-sex married couples and their children were published, Minister Nenad Popović recalled Vučić's Iron Regiment and tweeted: "At a time when as a country we are fighting in every way to support childbirth, gay picture books are being imported from Croatia!" This should be stopped urgently! We have to stand in the way of those who want to convince us that it's okay that 'Roko has two moms and Ana has two dads'."
For the first time in a year, Ana Brnabić recalled that she is at the head of a government that at least formally advocates for European values, but also that she herself belongs to the LGBT community. She stated that Popović insulted a part of the citizens of Serbia for whom she works and who pay the government, saying that she would like her ministers to do their work a little more, and not express personal views on various topics that are not within their competence. Also, she said that she thinks that his statement "is not in the spirit of tolerance that the Government is trying to promote": "Gay people have reproductive organs too. And for gay people, no minister, no government can determine whether they will have children or not, nor can they control it."
But don't lie down! The pride did not last long. After her statement, there was an uproar within the Government itself. At the session on May 4, the prime minister and Popović first clashed, and then Jadranka Joksimović, ironically, the minister for the EU and winner of the "Rainbow" Award for promoting the rights of LGBT people, joined the discussion: "What are we talking about? Are same-sex marriages allowed in Serbia? If they are, then Popović is wrong." The Prime Minister replied that saying someone has two moms or two dads does not mean gay marriage.
Minister Zorana Mihajlović also protested, noting that ministers have the right to their opinion, and that public criticism is not okay.
So that was official information. What was learned unofficially is that there was a "break" in the Government, which to some extent explains the very emotional performance of Prime Minister Brnabić in the days that followed.
Just two days after this session, the Prime Minister appeared on the front page of Blic and explained that she told "President Vučić that days like this make me think about my place and role in the Government", but that "love for Serbia, faith that this the country can do much more and better, and it is personal responsibility to take on the job and finish it - so that the citizens of Serbia feel a better life through their wallets, career, greater choices in life, prosperity for their family". She did not leave out that there is "a desire for the Government and I to give full support to Aleksandar Vučić to lead the country through extremely challenging times and to emerge from all the adversities that are pressing us now as a country of peace, stability and equal opportunities for all".
However, this exposition "like from a scrapbook" in the fifth grade of elementary school is not the main reason for nausea. It was the front page after all, with a photo of Ana Brnabić in half-light, with folded hands and the headline "My hardest day as Prime Minister".
Ana Brnabić didn't have the hardest time in the moments when people, institutions and laws were being destroyed here. No. To a woman who is the prime minister of a country where no state segment functions, where people are born, live and die like cattle, where every day is a challenge, and going from point A to point B is a real adventure - that woman folded her hands and stated that she had the hardest time in the conflict over the picture book!
To make the matter even sadder, and this whole performance even more arresting, it is worth saying that Prime Minister Brnabić has not been famous for representing the LGBT community: she has mostly kept silent about this matter, and to this day her greatest "achievement" is " Autovana" as a lesbian (in August 2016, Aleksandar Vučić did this personally, appointing her as the Minister of State Administration and Local Self-Government) and that she appears with her partner at public events. However, as it happens, it would have been better for her to just keep quiet and go out with the girl. In January 2018, in an interview for the London "Economist" she was asked what she would say to Vladimir Putin if she were to talk to him about the rights of minorities and gay people, and she said the following: "Great question. I don't know, I would think about it when I met him. I don't even know if we would even talk about it. But don't forget that there are also EU countries that do not have a very positive attitude towards minorities and that do not treat minorities well."
After the journalist stated that "after all, there are not many EU countries", or that there are actually none, whose leaders tell gay people what Putin tells them, Brnabić only stated that "that is true".
"I DON'T UNDERSTAND": Although she does not have very high marks for "artistic impression" in any category of her activity, the current prime minister probably has the worst performances in the field of relations with the media. It is said that she excelled there and wrote herself directly into history with every statement she made.
The first anthology statement was made in September of last year, after physical attacks on journalists, at the time of the strongest pressure on the newspaper "Vranjske", Vukašin Obradović's hunger strike and the beginning of a more serious struggle by the media community. Commenting on those events, she said visibly excited in front of the N1 cameras: "You know how I know it's Thursday? So when I get up in the morning, I get a clipping and that clipping looks like this: negative clipping, negative clipping, negative clipping... Then I know it's Thursday and the weeklies are out. I have never seen anyone afraid to say whatever he wanted to me personally, to the government, and to the President of the Republic."
A little later, in October, she went to Brussels and stated in front of the European Parliament that "now there is a lack of investigative journalism in Serbia, but not because the government is stifling it, but because there is no objective journalism in Serbia, that is, there are very few objective journalists." ". That sentence has been analyzed so many times, that it is really unnecessary to devote more than half a line to the untruths, nonsense, replacement of theses and insults.
In November 2017, the Prime Minister met with representatives of the Group for Media Freedom, where she - among other things - accused the Group of presenting the situation in Serbia as if it were North Korea at the regional conference held at the time in Tirana. Then, for more than a month, she composed a response to the Group's requests for improving the situation in the media, in order to respond to them with a long and hard-to-read series of phrases and generalities.
However, that did not prevent her from speaking very concretely about some media in the meantime. Commenting on the findings of the KRIK portal about her assets, Brnabić said in the program "Questionnaire" on RTS: "At the moment we have various, so-called investigative media, which dig as they please, without any responsibility and without anyone to hold them accountable according to the property of the official."
KRIK, that "so-called research media" has - to be reminded here - been awarded the most serious and important national and international recognitions for its work. Just like the other research portals in the country "where there is a lack of investigative journalism" were awarded.
Brnabić also disqualified a certain number of media and journalists in April this year, after she was handed a report from the European Commission in which the EU expressed concern about the level of freedom of speech and information. First she said that she "doesn't understand what the problem is with the media", and then: "I don't think there are any problems, but there are people who think there are problems" (?!).
It is difficult to actually make a "best of" list of the prime minister's most scandalous theses about the media, because each one was below the level that would be expected from such a high state office - each one showed ignorance, lack of desire to fix things, turning a blind eye to obvious problems. Nevertheless, in all of them, Brnabić pointed out the division into "these" and "those", talking about the polarization of society as the biggest obstacle to the bright future that inevitably awaits us.
In an interview with "Blic" on December 17, she said that it is true that she has become more sensitive to criticism, because it is normal when "you invest so much energy in something and you are convinced that things are moving forward, and neither the opposition nor a certain group of media ever do anything positive to say": "Those criticisms are terrible for me. I deeply believe that with the highly polarized society we have today, we cannot move forward sustainably. We can solve some problems and that we are moving a little bit, but the more polarized society is, the more difficult it is to make any serious changes."
As it is more or less the same text that Vučić has been repeating for years, this is where we actually get to the point: what Vučić thinks, Brnabić says, only less convincingly and less skilfully than he does. The same intolerance towards the critical attitude, towards the other and the different, which is more than obvious in Vučić's case, is more and more difficult to hide in Brnabićka and emerges more and more often.
In the same way, the two of them express themselves about the workers on strike, about the media, about the opposition, about pensions, about poverty, about every statement that is negative for them, only that Ana Brnabić controls herself to some extent.
In this similarity may lie the secret, i.e. the explanation of why a fairly capable woman agreed to be a "ficus": to stand in the shadow of a man who publicly calls her "Anna", who has taken over a good part of her prime ministerial powers, who represents and boasts are measured in the direct competence of the Government, which talks about budget money as if it were his grandfather's, and which, by being declared president, only changed its address.
Because of all that, for both her and him, it's really lucky that the number of negative clippings and critical media is constantly decreasing and that there is only one Thursday in a week. Until he is also abolished.
