The student-led protest movement, running as the Student List, won Serbia’s snap parliamentary election on October 25, 2026, and longtime leader Aleksandar Vučić conceded defeat late that Sunday, saying “it is clear that we have lost these elections” even before final results were in.
Vučić called the early vote after two years of protests that began when a train station canopy collapsed in Novi Sad in 2024, killing 16 people. Many Serbians saw the disaster as a sign of corruption and negligence. Vučić had served two terms as president and could not run for a third, so he led his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) in a bid to return as prime minister. The Student List has no obvious leaders and fielded doctors, actors, academics and athletes for the 250-seat parliament; its lead candidate is cardiologist Ilija Srdanović. Its platform included removing officials who broke rules in cracking down on protesters and freeing the public broadcaster from political control. The election commission’s preliminary figures pointed to record turnout, with 64.9% voting by 6 p.m. local time. Vučić and the SNS have denied corruption.
Source: BBC News, Serbia’s veteran ruler Vučić concedes election to student-led protest movement
Image: House of the National Assembly of Serbia, kallerna, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.