Serbia's student-backed list wins parliamentary election, ending Vučić's 14-year rule

A leaderless list of student-backed candidates has won Serbia's parliamentary election, ending 14 years in power for Aleksandar Vučić's Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). Vučić conceded defeat late on Sunday, October 25, The Guardian and The Kathmandu Post reported, as tens of thousands of people celebrated in Belgrade and other cities.

The results are provisional. With almost 99% of votes counted, the State Election Commission put the student list on 52.7% and the SNS-led alliance on 39.2%, according to a report carried by The Kathmandu Post. The Guardian, citing projections by the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy in Belgrade, gave 53% and 39%. The two reports put the list's share of the 250-seat parliament at 139 and 141 seats respectively, a clear majority in either case, with the remaining seats going to minority parties.

Origins of the movement

The win caps nearly two years of anti-government protests that began after a concrete canopy at the Novi Sad railway station collapsed in November 2024, killing 16 people, as reported by The Hindu and The Guardian. Protesters blamed the disaster on corruption and poor construction, and the demonstrations grew into some of the largest Serbia had seen since the fall of Slobodan Milošević in 2000, The Hindu noted. Vučić and his party have repeatedly denied accusations of corruption.

Challenges for a new government

The movement has no hierarchy and no experience of government. Its candidates include academics, actors and farmers as well as students, and it is not yet clear whom it will put forward as prime minister. Its prominent figures include cardiologist Ilija Srdanović, who headed the candidate list, former central bank governor Dejan Šoškić and Belgrade University chemistry professor Radomir Saičić, according to The Guardian and The Kathmandu Post.

Its platform centres on fighting corruption and restoring the rule of law. The Guardian reported that it plans to stop the appointment of party loyalists to state-owned companies and to put major state infrastructure contracts under the scrutiny of new independent bodies.

Like Hungary's new government after Viktor Orbán's defeat in April, the movement will face public institutions staffed by officials loyal to the outgoing government, The Guardian noted. Nikola Burazer, programme director at the Belgrade-based Centre for Contemporary Politics, told the newspaper that the movement's decision-making, which took months to choose its candidates, would need to speed up.

Reactions

Vučić, who before the vote had dismissed the movement as a tool of "foreign powers", according to The Hindu, blamed his defeat on support for it from European countries and what he called the "US deep state", The Guardian reported.

Leaders abroad welcomed the result. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it "clearly a new chapter in the history of the country and its people", according to The Guardian. EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said "the door to the EU is open", the BBC reported. The Kremlin said it hoped the new leaders would understand that cooperation with Russia was in Serbia's interests, according to both the BBC and The Guardian.