Photo: Emilija Knezevic / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)
Serbia woke up to a new political era on Monday after a student-led protest movement won a historic landslide in Sunday's parliamentary election, ending Aleksandar Vucic's long grip on power in the Balkan country.
With almost 99 percent of votes counted, the State Election Commission put the students' list at 52.7 percent of the vote, good for 139 seats in the 250-seat National Assembly. The alliance led by Vucic's Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) took 39.2 percent and 97 seats, with the remaining seats going to minority parties.
Vucic conceded on Sunday night, about 90 minutes after polls closed. "It is clear that we have lost these elections, the Student List has won," he told supporters in a televised speech, while blaming independent media and alleged foreign interference for the defeat.
From a collapsed canopy to a political earthquake
The result caps almost two years of student-led demonstrations against corruption and democratic backsliding, triggered by the collapse of a train station canopy in Novi Sad in 2024 that killed 16 people. What began as protests over a construction disaster grew into a nationwide movement demanding accountability, and Vucic called snap elections in September hoping to reassert control — a gamble that backfired.
Turnout reached 69 percent, the highest in 33 years. Within moments of the concession, tens of thousands of people poured onto Belgrade's boulevards, honking car horns, dancing and chanting "he's done." Speaking for the students, Belgrade University professor Radomir Sajcic said: "Tonight we celebrate victory, tomorrow we build the future."
A movement that now has to govern
The scale of the shift is hard to overstate. Vucic, a populist who balanced ties with Russia, China, the United States and the European Union, had dominated Serbian politics as prime minister or president since 2014. The Socialist Party, founded by Slobodan Milosevic, appears set to leave the Assembly for the first time in 36 years.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos were among the European leaders who congratulated the Student List.
The open question now is governance. The movement has no single leader and little governing experience, and it must turn two years of protest energy into a program — starting with the corruption investigations and institutional reviews its supporters expect. How it handles that transition will decide whether Sunday's earthquake becomes a lasting new era for Serbia's roughly 6.5 million people.
Sources: Reuters; The Straits Times; Le Monde; CNN