Why a student protest movement is challenging 12 years of Vučić rule in Serbia

Serbians vote for a new parliament on Sunday in a snap election widely seen as a referendum on the 12-year rule of Aleksandar Vučić, with a movement born of student protests emerging as the main threat to his dominance, the BBC reports.

The main challenger to Vučić's Serbian Progressive party (SNS) is the 'Student List – Students Win' movement, which has no obvious leaders — and none of its candidates are actually students. The BBC reports that the list's top candidate, Ilija Srdanović, is a cardiology professor in Novi Sad.

The movement traces its roots to 1 November 2024, when a concrete canopy collapsed at Novi Sad train station, killing 16 people. Critics said the tragedy exposed corruption and negligence, and weekly student protests spread from campuses to city streets. The SNS was shaken, and the prime minister resigned within weeks.

Vučić has been prime minister or president since 2014 and, barred from a third presidential term, is now leading his party into the election. The Student List's 11-point programme promises to root out corruption, purge police officials who acted against protesters, free public broadcasting from political control and stop placing party loyalists in charge of public companies. Vučić and the SNS deny the allegations.

Observers from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe are monitoring the vote. Serbia's election commission says the election is free and the ballot secret, but independent monitors have reported threats and violence during the campaign, and some 160 attacks on media and journalists have been recorded this year, according to the European Federation of Journalists.