Bosnia Nominates Its First Ever Female Croat Prime Minister Designate.

Borjana Kristo has received a mandate to establish a new government, making her the first female prime minister in the Balkan country’s history.

On Wednesday, 23 members of Bosnia’s lower house of parliament, out of a total of 42, voted in favour of Borjana Kristo’s appointment as prime minister-designate.

Despite ideological disagreements, members of the legislature from the ten parties that gained a combined 24 seats in the country’s October election backed a multi-ethnic coalition government.

Kristo, who has spent over 30 years in politics in various legislative and executive capacities, has 35 days to appoint her cabinet. Before the new administration can take office, legislators need to accept her nominees.

Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs, the country’s three largest ethnic groups, are mandated by the constitution to be represented in the government.

The biggest Bosniak nationalist party, SDA, has been shut out of the governing majority for the first time in almost a decade.

Kristo’s HDZ and SNSD, led by pro-Russian Serb politician Milorad Dodik, are both well-established nationalist groups that will be participating in the coalition.

The latter two parties, however, promised in the coalition agreement that they would prioritize economic and social issues over the simmering ethnic tensions that had plagued Bosnia ever since the end of the country’s interethnic war in 1995.

Before the vote, Kristo addressed lawmakers and promised to prioritize a number of economic and political reforms the country has to execute to achieve its declared aim of entering the European Union.

Though Bosnia has wanted to join the European Union since 2003, the country’s ethnic authorities have been unable or unwilling to put aside their divisions and enact the necessary reforms.

In light of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, the European Union has sped up its enlargement process, adding Bosnia to its list of official membership candidates this month despite persistent criticism of the country’s administration.

Kristo argued that Bosnia “must use” the opportunity afforded by the European Union’s move.

She said that people of different backgrounds have to “strength to put behind the conflicts that divide us and use challenges that await us as motivation for mutual respect, cohesion and uncompromising work for the benefit of all our people.”