Serbia’s Vucic Concedes Defeat as Student-Led Movement Wins Historic Election

Belgrade: Serbia’s long-serving leader Aleksandar Vucic conceded defeat on Sunday night in a historic parliamentary election, bringing his more than decade-long dominance to an end after the Students’ List, a movement born from two years of street protests, appeared to win a majority.

Speaking to supporters at his party headquarters in Belgrade, Vucic said final results were not yet in but that a sample showed his party had lost. He projected the students at between 135 and 140 seats in the 250-seat parliament and his Serbian Progressive Party at around 105. A representative sample by the CeSID-IPSPS pollsters gave the Student List 138 seats and the SNS 104, with minority parties likely to share the rest.

Turnout reached 67.6 per cent by 7 pm, the highest since Yugoslavia broke up in 1992, with queues of up to two hours at some polling stations. An estimated 150,000 people attended the students’ final rally in Belgrade last week.

Celebrations erupted in Belgrade and other cities, with crowds embracing riot police, while supporters at the students’ headquarters chanted for victory. Professor Radomir Saicic told the crowd that the voice of the people was being heard and that the work of building the future would start on Monday.

The movement traces back to November 2024, when a concrete canopy collapsed at the Novi Sad railway station, killing 16 people, amid evidence of shoddy construction and corruption. Vucic resigned the presidency last month to gamble on a snap election. The students fielded 250 candidates, from academics to athletes and farmers, against a ruling party that dominated broadcasting and state institutions.

Monitors had raised concerns about detentions, surveillance and cyber-attacks against activists, and on election day the group CRTA reported many irregularities, including photographed ballots, attempted vote-buying and carousel voting.

The result echoes Viktor Orban’s defeat in Hungary six months ago.