Serbia: 150,000 join student-led Belgrade rally before Sunday's election
About 150,000 supporters of Serbia's leaderless Student List marched through Belgrade ahead of a parliamentary election that could end 14 years of Aleksandar Vucic's rule.
At a glance
- About 150,000 people joined a Student List rally in central Belgrade on Thursday, ahead of Sunday's parliamentary election.
- The leaderless student movement is contesting all 250 seats and wants to end over 14 years of Aleksandar Vucic's party rule.
- Civil society groups say the campaign has been marred by intimidation and warn free and fair election conditions are lacking.
About 150,000 supporters of Serbia's opposition student movement rallied in central Belgrade on Thursday, ahead of a parliamentary election on Sunday that the leaderless Student List hopes will end more than 14 years of rule by Aleksandar Vucic's rightwing populist Serbian Progressive party (SNS).
The crowd estimate came from the Archive of Public Gatherings, an independent crowd-size monitoring group. Waving flags reading "Students are winning", chanting and blowing whistles, students and their supporters marched through the capital before converging on Slavija Square, the site of some of their biggest protests.
"Students are winning"
Jugoslav Gasic, a university professor and one of the 250 candidates on the Student List, told the crowd: "We are putting an end to 14 years of humiliation, chaos and betrayal, and to decades of putting personal and party interests above yours." He added: "You deserve better, and we know how to deliver it. Students are winning!" The crowd chanted "Victory, victory!"
Marija Nedeljkovic Radic, 47, said she had come to back the movement because young people had given her hope that life in a normal country was possible. "Really, for the first time in my life, I believe that it is possible," she said. Another attender, 35-year-old Igor, said the rally was the last of the campaign and it mattered that people turned out to "send a message of love and peace" and to meet again at the polling stations on the 25th.
How the movement began
Sunday's vote follows nearly two years of student-led protests sparked by the 2024 collapse of a canopy at the newly renovated Novi Sad railway station, which killed 16 people. The deaths were widely blamed on corruption and triggered some of Serbia's largest demonstrations since Slobodan Milošević fell in 2000. What began as a demand for a transparent investigation grew into calls for an early election.
Many of the Student List's 250 candidates for the 250-seat parliament are drawn from academia or are deliberate political outsiders. The platform is broad, but fighting corruption sits at its core. Serbia lacks reliable independent polling, and surveys have produced widely differing results.
Vucic's counter-rally
Vucic, 56, has dominated Serbian politics for more than a decade as either prime minister or president. Amid mounting pressure he announced the snap vote last month, setting up his biggest electoral challenge since his party took power in 2012, and resigned in order to run for prime minister.
Addressing supporters at a sports hall in the capital on Thursday, he repeated his accusation that the student movement is a foreign-funded coup attempt. "Let us never forget how they tried to bring down our state. Let us always protect and defend it," he said, adding: "Let us go out and defeat them! Defeat them decisively!"
Concerns about the vote
Civil society groups say the campaign has been marred by intimidation, arrests and misuse of public resources, and warned days before the vote that conditions for "free and fair elections" were lacking. On Wednesday, Belgrade prosecutors questioned six people arrested on suspicion of plotting "violence, riots and attacks" on election day. Reports of threats and intimidation targeting student demonstrators have grown in recent months, although their rallies have remained largely peaceful since they began.
Source: The Guardian World.
Questions and answers
- Who is leading Serbia's Student List?
- The Student List is a leaderless movement of student-backed candidates. It is fielding 250 candidates for the 250-seat parliament, many of them drawn from academia or new to politics.
- Why have students been protesting in Serbia?
- Protests began after the 2024 collapse of a canopy at the newly renovated Novi Sad railway station killed 16 people. The movement first demanded a transparent investigation, then called for an early election.
- What did Aleksandar Vucic say about the student protests?
- Vucic has regularly accused the student movement of being a foreign-funded coup attempt, and told supporters at a Belgrade rally on Thursday to defeat them decisively.
