Student movement defeats Serbia’s long-time ruling party

Serbia’ long-standing leader Aleksandar Vucic has admitted defeat to a student-led protest movement in snap parliamentary elections.

Celebrations erupted as crowds descended on the centre of Belgrade, Novi Sad and other cities.

The student movement was formed less than two years ago in response to a railway station disaster blamed on corruption and negligence, but fought the election with candidates from a cross-section of Serbian society.

“It is clear we have lost these elections,” right-wing populist leader Vucic says as he conceded. With 97% of polling stations counted, Serbia’s election commission says the students had won 2.25 million votes and the former ruling party 1.67 million.

The students had secured 52.7% of the vote, while Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) was on 39.2%, according to its preliminary figures late on Monday morning.

Vucic had spent two terms as president and could not seek a third term, so he was leading his SNS party with the aim of returning to the post of prime minister, which he left in 2017.

He called the snap elections after two years of protests triggered by the collapse of a canopy in front of Novi Sad station which killed 16 people.
The Student List’s lead candidate Ilija Srdanovic tells BBC Serbian: “This will be a free state.”

He says the anti-corruption movement, which had attracted anti-government voters across Serbia, hoped to “free the country from tyranny”.

There were celebrations on the streets of the city, with people dancing and chanting “victory”, cars honking, and fireworks set off. “Serbia is free,” one student tells the BBC. “It’s a miracle.”

Vucic made his announcement at the headquarters of his SNS party in the capital, Belgrade.

The centre of Novi Sad – the northern city that triggered the student-led protests – was crowded. “Everything is going to get better now,” David Vasic, one of those celebrating, tells BBC Serbian.

The Student List – which has no obvious leaders and whose members are not used to politics – had attracted anti-government voters across Serbia.

It decided to field candidates to the 250-member parliament from across Serbian society including doctors, actors, academics and sport personalities.

“This is not an ordinary election victory, this is an avalanche that has wiped out an authoritarian regime and entire political scene,” says Nebojša Vladisavljevic, professor of political science at the University of Belgrade.

There were now two big political groups in Serbia, and the Student List had “absolute legitimacy” to govern for the coming years, he tells BBC Serbian.

The anti-corruption movement campaigned on a manifesto that included purging officials who broke rules cracking down on protesters, stopping party loyalists from leading public enterprises, and freeing the public broadcaster of political control.

Vucic and the SNS party have repeatedly denied corruption.

Vucic, who backed Serbia’s candidacy for the European Union (EU) while refusing to impose sanctions on Russia over its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, had pledged to increase pensions and public sector salaries, and investment in state healthcare.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov praises Vucic’s contribution to relations with Russia and hoped “the new political force” in Belgrade would understand that co-operation with Moscow was in Serbia’s interests: “But, as you know, it takes two to tango.”

His defeat was welcomed by Hungary’s prime minister, Péter Magyar, who said he was delighted to hear from the Student List’s leaders “how much strength our victory in April had given them”.

Magyar’s party ended 16 years of Viktor Orbán rule, while Vucic’s SNS party had been in power since 2012.

European commissioner for enlargement Marta Kos says “a new chapter can begin for Serbia.

The door to the EU is open, and we are ready to move forward together”.

Earlier in the day, long queues were seen outside polling stations in cities and towns across Serbia.

This was also the case outside booths in a number of countries with sizeable Serbian communities – including Slovenia’s capital Ljubljana, Germany’s Munich, and Los Angeles and Chicago in the United States.

In France, Serbian voters waited in line in heavy rain in Paris.

The election was held amid high tensions across Serbia, with police sealing off streets around the Republic Electoral Commission in Belgrade.

Attention will now turn to who will lead the Student List as prime minister.

Presidential elections are due to take place in December, with parliament speaker Ana Brnabic currently filling the role in a caretaker capacity.

– BBC

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