Aleksandar Vučić conceded defeat in front of cameras, admitting “It is clear that we have lost these elections” as turnout approached 70%, the highest since Yugoslavia broke up.
The result ends over a decade of dominance by a leader who had been prime minister or president since 2014. Protests began nearly two years ago after a railway station canopy collapsed in Novi Sad and killed 16 people. Vučić resigned the presidency last month to run for prime minister in a snap election.
Calling him the first politician the recent protest movement has felled overstates the case – protests forced his prime minister out last year. He is probably the most prominent casualty so far. The students won by turning anger into organisation; Vučić lost by misjudging the movement.
How the Students Won
What won the election was organisation, applied at every stage of the campaign. Students and teachers described a methodical door-knocking campaign, peaceful marches, a disciplined message and a constant rotation of leaders that shielded individuals from smear campaigns.
Universities across the country vetted the candidates through proposals and a screening process, and the final list of 250 names carried no students at all. It offered professors, farmers, actors, a popular rapper and a cardiologist, Ilija Srdanović, at the head.
Political scientist Dusko Radosavljevic said “the students simply gave a voice to the justified anger of citizens.” Commentators add that the movement mobilised voters well outside Belgrade and Novi Sad, which Vučić’s team failed to anticipate. Student groups also trained for election-day fraud and planned to post teams at polling stations – a precaution that probably helped the result stand.
Why Vučić Lost
Against that discipline, Vučić made choices that widened his own defeat. He apparently waited until he felt strong enough to call the vote, and he underestimated how widely the Student List could mobilise.
His supporters credit him with modernising the economy and building highways, railways, schools and hospitals. Rising wages didn’t necessarily translate into proportional gains in living standards, and the rising price of everyday life and public debt remain contested. For many voters the canopy collapse probably tarnished those achievements by tying them to cronyism and graft.
After months of accusing the students of intending to “destroy the state” under foreign guidance, Vučić blamed independent media, unnamed European countries and an “American deep state.” Many voters seem to have judged the movement by its peaceful marches, and the foreign-sponsor charge found little audience.
A Mandate With Open Questions
A parliamentary majority settles who governs. How is another matter. Vučić himself put the Student List at between 135 and 140 seats in the 250-seat parliament, against about 105 for his own coalition. The gap probably spares the winners coalition bargaining.
The Student List is a broad movement with no charismatic leader to replace Vučić, and observers expect the passage from protest to government to prove harder than winning the vote.
Its programme concentrates on public procurement, education, media freedom, judicial independence and health care, and says little about foreign policy. Its ranks include staunch pro-Europeans and others who back a traditional Serbian nationalist agenda.
Political observers predict a purge of Vučić allies in the police, security services and ministries. Such moves will need legal process to honour the rule-of-law promises on which the list campaigned. Vučić has also warned investors may read the result negatively.
Brussels Cheers, Belgrade Hedges
The programme’s rule-of-law focus explains the warmth in Brussels, where Ursula von der Leyen offered support on the rule of law, media freedom, anti-corruption work and Serbia’s future in the EU. Serbia’s drift under Vučić had put around 1.5 billion euros of EU funding at risk, so Brussels had a strong interest in the outcome.
Brussels has reason to temper its enthusiasm, though. The EU’s own security think tank, the Institute for Security Studies, concluded major changes in Serbia’s position on Kosovo, Russia sanctions or China look unlikely in the near term. Its commentary cites polling in which 75% of the list’s supporters favour closer European relations and 10% favour Russia. Only 42% call alignment with the EU the best protection for Serbia’s interests.
Elsewhere in the Balkans, Albanian students torched ministries in Tirana last week over tuition bills and graduate unemployment. Their grievances differ from Serbia’s, which cautions against treating Europe’s protests as one movement.
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