Serbia’s student-led movement has won a seismic parliamentary election victory, ending 14 years in power for Aleksandar Vučić’s right-wing populist party.
Vučić conceded defeat on Sunday night, less than two hours after polls closed in the snap parliamentary election. “It is clear that we have lost these elections, the Student List has won,” he said in a televised speech, according to Reuters.
A majority in a record-turnout vote
Citing preliminary results, Vučić said the Student List would take between 135 and 140 seats in the 250-member National Assembly, with his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) reduced to about 105. No other party entered parliament, he said.
Turnout was close to 70%, the highest since 1992, according to pollsters and the election commission cited by Reuters. The commission’s figures showed 64.9% of voters had cast ballots by 6pm local time, two hours before polls closed, and long lines formed outside polling stations across the country.
From a station canopy to a movement
The vote followed nearly two years of street demonstrations set off by the deadly collapse of a canopy at Novi Sad railway station in November 2024, which killed 16 people. The disaster, widely blamed on corruption, became the trigger for Serbia’s largest protests since the fall of Slobodan Milošević in 2000.
Vučić called the snap election in September and resigned as president to run again for prime minister, after term limits prevented a third presidential run. Instead, the Student List — a coalition of academics, artists and professionals chosen through citizens’ assemblies and headed by cardiologist Ilija Srdanović — channelled two years of anti-corruption anger into an outright majority.
Thousands poured into Belgrade’s streets to celebrate, with cars honking and fireworks lighting the skyline. “Students won and with them also a hope that Serbia can be a country of justice, freedom and dignity,” Student List candidate Radomir Saičić said at the movement’s election headquarters.
