Ahead of Sunday's snap parliamentary election, a student protest movement in Serbia has emerged as the main threat to populist leader Aleksandar Vučić's 12 years in power. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing BBC News.
After two years of student protests, Serbians vote for a new parliament on Sunday. The "Student List-Students Win" movement has no obvious leaders and is not used to politics, but it has attracted anti-government voters across Serbia.
It all began on 1 November 2024, when a concrete canopy collapsed outside Novi Sad train station, in Serbia's second biggest city, killing 16 people. The tragedy was seen as emblematic of corruption and negligence in Serbia. Critics linked the station's fatally flawed renovation to a president who had closely associated himself with the project.
What started as weekly student protests demanding justice on university campuses and city streets soon became a national movement, often at a local level, that encompassed far more sections of Serbian society, including farmers, actors and judges.
The Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), founded by Vučić, was shaken and within weeks the prime minister resigned. Belgrade saw one of its biggest ever protests in March 2025, and while the leaderless student movement increased in strength, they organised themselves through student assemblies or plenums.
At the last election in 2023, Vučić's SNS was challenged by a loose coalition of pro-EU parties that later fell apart. This time he faces a far clearer threat from a student movement that has shunned the mainstream opposition parties.
Vučić has spent two terms as president and cannot seek a third term, so he is now leading his party with the aim of returning to the post of prime minister, which he left in 2017. The right-wing populist leader has doubled down on unfounded allegations that his opponents are not so much students and professors, but "mighty great powers" seeking to overthrow Serbia. And he has vowed an end to what he sees as the politicisation of schools and universities.
Vučić has steered a careful path with the West, continuing to back Serbia's candidacy for the European Union, while refusing to impose sanctions on Russia for its full-scale war in Ukraine. Several government ministers attended the Belgrade funeral of war criminal Ratko Mladić, prompting EU anger at his "glorification".
Helena Ivanov of the Henry Jackson Society, a foreign policy think tank, says the students have been able to mobilise the masses in a way traditional opposition parties have not been able to — and this is Vučić's biggest challenge since he came to power. "He's been running in all elections Serbia has had since the introduction of multi-party election system — so obviously defeating him isn't going to be easy, but this time around President Vučić isn't going to have an easy time either," she told the BBC from Belgrade.
Serbia has a parliament with 250 seats and there is just one national constituency under proportional representation. Voting runs from 07:00 (06:00 GMT) and ends at 20:00 on Sunday. There are 6.45 million registered voters and anyone over the age of 18 gets the right to choose which party's list of candidates to vote for. Sunday's vote involves 18 lists but only seven of them are fielding the full 250 candidates. MPs are elected according to how much support the list receives if it wins more than 3% of the vote. Several opposition parties have pulled out in favour of the Student List.
Far from being students themselves, the candidates are made up of teachers and university professors, actors and doctors, farmers and scientists. They still have no leaders, but top candidate Ilija Srdanović is a cardiology professor in Novi Sad, while others include ex-basketball star Dejan Bodiroga, renowned actor Tihomir Stanić and former National Bank of Serbia governor Dejan Šoškić. Under an 11-point programme, the student movement wants to eradicate corruption by forming a police unit to arrest those responsible for it.