Serbia's student-led opposition holds final Belgrade rally before Sunday vote

Tens of thousands of backers of Serbia's student-led opposition gathered in central Belgrade on Thursday for their final rally before Sunday's parliamentary election, while Aleksandar Vucic, who resigned the presidency in September to run for prime minister, held a rival event at a sports hall across the city.

At Slavija Square, a location used for some of the movement's biggest demonstrations, marchers blew whistles and held up flags that said "students are winning". The vote is widely seen as a chance to end Vucic's long period in power.

Marija Nedeljkovic Radic, 47, said she believed for the first time in her life that change was possible, and credited young people with giving her hope of "a normal country".

The election comes after almost two years of student-led demonstrations. They were set off by a canopy collapse at a newly renovated railway station in Novi Sad in 2024 that killed 16 people. Widely blamed on corruption, the railway disaster led to some of the biggest protests in Serbia since Slobodan Milosevic was ousted in 2000. Calls for transparency then broadened into demands for an early vote.

The Student List is contesting all 250 seats in parliament with 250 candidates, a group that includes many academics and political newcomers. Its platform focuses on fighting corruption. The movement aims to remove Vucic's right-wing populist Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) from power after more than 14 years.

"We are putting an end to 14 years of humiliation, chaos and betrayal, and to decades of putting personal and party interests above yours," university professor Jugoslav Gasic, one of the Student List candidates, told the crowd in Belgrade. Supporters chanted "Victory, victory!" He continued: "You deserve better, and we know how to deliver it. Students are winning!"

During the past week, student marchers travelled for days through Serbia, passing through rural regions where Vucic has strong support. Vucic, who called the snap election last month, has described the movement as an attempt at a coup funded from abroad. "Let us go out and defeat them! Defeat them decisively!" he told supporters on Thursday.

Reliable independent polling is scarce in Serbia. Political scientist Dusan Vucicevic told the AFP news agency he predicted the students would take more than 40 percent of the vote – a result far above any opposition list since the SNS took power in 2012. The Associated Press reported that surveys pointed to a tight contest, and that there are concerns about possible unrest should both sides declare victory.

This week, 24 Serbian civil society organisations said the conditions needed for "free and fair elections" were not in place. A monitoring group counted more than 100 violent incidents during the campaign. Prosecutors on Wednesday questioned six people who had been detained over an alleged plot to carry out "violence, riots and attacks" on election day.

Source: Al Jazeera.