Serbia votes as student movement challenges Vučić's 12 years in power

Serbians go to the polls on Sunday in a snap parliamentary election that has become the toughest test yet for Aleksandar Vučić's 12 years in power, with a student-led movement that emerged after a deadly train station disaster in 2024 now posing his clearest electoral challenge.

Campaigning closed on Thursday after rallies across the country. The vote is widely framed as a referendum on Serbia's direction.

From tragedy to movement

The movement traces back to 1 November 2024, when a concrete canopy collapsed outside the train station in Novi Sad, Serbia's second-largest city, killing 16 people. The accident was widely seen as a symbol of corruption and negligence, and critics linked the renovation to a president who had closely identified himself with the project.

Weekly student protests on campuses and in city streets grew into a national movement that drew in farmers, actors and judges. Vučić's Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) was shaken, and the prime minister resigned within weeks. Belgrade saw one of its largest protests in March 2025, and the leaderless movement organised itself through student assemblies, or plenums.

Candidates and platform

The "Student List-Students Win" movement has attracted anti-government voters and is fielding candidates from across society. Its lead candidate is Ilija Srdanović, a cardiology professor in Novi Sad, who joined students marching towards Belgrade and said history was being rewritten: "The energy is unstoppable." The list also includes former basketball star Dejan Bodiroga, actor Tihomir Stanić and former National Bank of Serbia governor Dejan Šoškić. Several opposition parties have pulled out in favour of the Student List.

Its 11-point programme calls for a police unit to tackle corruption, the removal of officials in the internal affairs ministry who broke rules on protest policing or have links to organised crime, media reform to free the public broadcaster from political control, and an end to appointing party loyalists to head public enterprises. Vučić and the SNS deny corruption and influencing the media.

Vučić's challenge

Vučić has served two terms as president and cannot seek a third, so he is leading his party with the aim of returning to the prime minister's post he left in 2017. He has been prime minister or president since 2014, after two years as deputy prime minister.

The right-wing populist leader has repeated unsubstantiated claims that his opponents are not students and professors but "mighty great powers" seeking to overthrow Serbia. He has backed Serbia's EU candidacy while refusing to sanction Russia over its war in Ukraine, and several ministers attended the Belgrade funeral of war criminal Ratko Mladić, drawing EU criticism.

Helena Ivanov of the Henry Jackson Society, a foreign policy think tank, told the BBC the students had mobilised the masses in a way traditional opposition parties could not, calling it Vučić's biggest challenge since he came to power. She said defeating him would not be easy, but that this time he would not have an easy race either.

Voting and concerns

Serbia's parliament has 250 seats, elected by proportional representation in a single national constituency. Polls open at 07:00 and close at 20:00 on Sunday, with 6.45 million registered voters. Eighteen lists are competing, but only seven are fielding a full 250 candidates; parties need more than 3% of the vote to win seats.

European observers are monitoring the vote. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has described a "tense and divisive electoral climate" and a "referendum-like atmosphere". Serbia's election commission says elections are free and the ballot is secret, but the independent watchdog CRTA has warned of threats, physical violence and surveillance of opposition activists, and alleged "electoral engineering" by state institutions. It also complained that almost three-quarters of TV coverage went to government representatives. The European Centre for Press and Media Freedom says about 160 attacks on media and journalists have been recorded in Serbia this year.

Source: BBC World.