Vučić Concedes as Student List Wins Serbia Election

Serbian leader Aleksandar Vučić has conceded defeat in a parliamentary election, ending 12 years of dominance to a slate led by students who had spent two years protesting against his government.

Final results were not yet in. Speaking to supporters at his party headquarters in Belgrade, Vučić said: "On the basis of a sample … it is clear that we have lost these elections, the Student List has won, they will have between 135 and 140 seats and we will have 105." A representative sample by the pollsters CeSID and IPSPS pointed to 138 seats for the Student List and 104 for Vučić's Serbian Progressive Party, with the rest of the 250 seats likely to go to ethnic minority parties.

Record turnout and street celebrations

Voters queued at polling stations across the country on Sunday, some waiting up to two hours. By 7pm local time, CeSID and Ipsos put turnout at 67.6 percent, the highest since Yugoslavia broke up in 1992. About 150,000 people had gone to the students' final rally in Belgrade the week before.

When word of the result spread, celebrations broke out in the capital and other cities. People hugged police officers and drivers honked horns. "This feels like New Year's Eve to me, like three New Year's Eves all at once," said Ivana, 43, who hopes for swift accountability for senior members of the ousted government, a campaign pledge of the Student List. Radomir Saičić, a Belgrade University professor speaking for the students, told supporters: "Tonight we celebrate victory, tomorrow we build the future."

How the movement began

The vote traces back to November 2024, when a concrete canopy collapsed at the Novi Sad railway station and killed 16 people. Evidence suggested slipshod construction, fraud and corruption were to blame, and student protests grew into a broad anti-government movement. Vučić resigned the presidency last month to gamble on snap elections.

The students put up 250 candidates for the 250 seats, from academics to athletes and farmers, among them Dejan Bodiroga, a former basketball player and the Euroleague Basketball president. Their slogan was "Serbia or Mafia?". They campaigned in rural areas that had long backed Vučić and went door to door, against a ruling party that controlled almost all broadcast channels. Vučić had accused the students of being stooges of foreign powers, which they dismissed.

Monitors raised concerns before and during the vote. Independent groups recorded photographing of ballots, attempted vote-buying and carousel voting. Raša Nedeljkov of the monitor CRTA said "a large number of irregularities continue to be recorded".

Source: The Guardian