Serbia’s Aleksandar Vucic conceded defeat to a student-led protest movement in a historic election on Sunday that ends his long grip on power and heralds a new political era in the Balkan country.
Vucic, a populist and nationalist, has dominated Serbian politics as prime minister or president since 2014.
But he called snap elections in September after almost two years of student-led demonstrations against perceived corruption and creeping authoritarianism triggered by the deaths of 16 people when a train station canopy collapsed in the city of Novi Sad in 2024.
“It is clear that we have lost these elections, the Student List has won,” Vucic said in a televised speech yesterday. Within moments of his announcement, the streets of Belgrade erupted in celebration. Tens of thousands of people thronged along the city’s main boulevards, with cars honking, people dancing and students shouting ‘victory’ and ‘he’s done.’
The students’ win marks a profound political shift in the country of some six million people and is reminiscent of the defeat of Hungary’s Viktor Orban in April. It may also offer a blueprint for other student movements across Europe, which have taken to the streets in recent weeks to protest, in some cases violently, against poor education standards and a lack of prospects.
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