Serbia’s PM-Designate Fills New Cabinet With Old Faces
By Milica Stojanovic
Serbian Prime Minister-designate Djuro Macut proposed his new 30-member cabinet to parliament on Monday.
But only eight of the 30 people are completely new. The others are ministers from the previous government, mostly heading the same ministries.
According to Macut’s proposal, Serbia will have the same finance minister, Sinisa Mali; interior minister, Ivica Dacic; defence minister, Bratislav Gasic; health minister, Zlatibor Loncar; foreign minister, Marko Djuric; energy minister Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic; economy minister, Adrijana Mesarovic; culture minister, Nikola Selakovic; Minister of Rural Welfare, Milan Krkobabic; Minister of Public Investment, Darko Glisic, and sports minister, Zoran Gajic.
Three people, Nemanja Starovic, Milica Djurdjevic Stamenkovski, and Jelena Zaric Kovacevic, will remain in the government but hold different positions.
Five ministers without portfolios, in charge of specific topics, also remain in the government.
Among the new faces, three are from President Aleksandar Vucic’s newly established Movement for People and State: Boris Bratina, who becomes Minister of Information and Telecommunications, Bela Balint, who will be Minister of Science, Technological Development and Innovation and Demo Berisa, who will be Minister for Human and Minority Rights and Social Dialogue.
The new education minister should be Dejan Vuk Stankovic, a political analyst, a frequent guest on pro-government media, a columnist and a professor at the Belgrade Teacher Education Faculty.
Vucic’s current adviser on agriculture, Dragan Glamocic, will be the new agriculture minister. Sara Pavkov, currently a state secretary in the Ministry of Environment Protection, will have this portfolio. Nenad Vujic, current head of the Judicial Academy, will be the new justice minister, while a long-term MP, Snezana Paunovic, will be the new Minister of State Administration and Local Government.
The new cabinet, headed by Djuro Macut, a low-profile doctor with little authority in the context of the President’s omnipresent power, should be confirmed on Tuesday.
The cabinet was proposed two-and-a-half months after former Prime Minister and Serbian Progressive Party president Milos Vucevic resigned.
He quit amid ongoing student protests over the deadly collapse of the external canopy at Novi Sad railway station on November 1, 2024 – and over the government and ruling party’s aggressive response to public attempts to commemorate the victims.
Protest, blockades and occupations of faculties across the country have continued since the end of November.
