Serbia's long-time leader Aleksandar Vucic has conceded defeat in a snap election, handing victory to a student-led movement that built mass support by pledging to fight against graft and reverse democratic backsliding.
The Student List won more than two million votes in the Balkan country of 6.5 million people, Mr Vucic told his supporters in Belgrade, about 90 minutes after the polls closed on Sunday. That result would give the movement a simple majority in the 250-seat parliament.
The outcome marks an astonishing fall from grace for Mr Vucic, who dominated politics in the country for more than a decade, Bloomberg reported. During that time, he skilfully balanced competing interests of remaining friendly with Russia, China and the US administration of President Donald Trump, while pushing join the EU.
But it was a grassroots protest movement sparked by outrage over a deadly construction disaster that became his undoing.
By resigning as president and calling the election, Mr Vucic hoped to return as prime minister. But that plan, which borrowed a page from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s playbook, backfired amid voter turnout of 69 per cent – the highest in 33 years.
The nation's political spectrum is now to be redrawn. Reviews are to be held into deals and policies.
The Student List reacted with chants of “Vucic is gone” after the announcement, but what comes next is less clear. The movement does not have a single leader and does not have supporters with extensive experience in government.
“This is the victory of the conviction that Serbia can and will do better,” said Radomir Saicic, one of the movement’s leaders. “We call on all citizens to act peacefully and in dignified manner. We didn’t fight for months to lose it today.”
Political overhaul
Mr Vucic, 56, is the second long-time leader to lose power in eastern Europe this year. His ally, Viktor Orban of Hungary, was toppled six months ago.
Mr Vucic told his supporters that the Student List won the ballot with the “direct support from some European countries and the American deep state, the one that is also against President Trump.” He called the movement “just contractors doing some very dirty work”, without providing evidence for his claims.
While he conceded defeat, Mr Vucic pledged to make a comeback, saying: “I’ll defeat them much sooner than they think.”
But his departure from power marks a tectonic shift for Serbia. The parliament will now effectively have only two sizeable political blocs, removing an array of once mainstream groups from liberals to conservatives and nationalists. The Socialists, once led by late strongman Slobodan Milosevic, are also out for the first time in 18 years.
Mr Vucic called the election more than a year ahead of schedule, after unrelenting anti-government rallies sparked by the collapse of a train station canopy that killed 16 people in 2024. Students led the protests, blaming the corruption and incompetence of ruling officials for the deaths.
While Mr Vucic is now gone, his geopolitical balancing act may continue. Before the vote, the movement’s representatives were cautious on sensitive issues such as Serbia’s rejection of Kosovo’s unilateral secession, or on adopting sanctions against Russia.
The opposition, which gained traction for the first time in more than a decade, pledged to focus on fighting against corruption, overhauling the judiciary, improving election conditions and boosting media diversity.
Meeting EU membership conditions is not an immediate priority either. Student List representatives have said the country can decide on that in a referendum.
No clear leader
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomed the change of power in a post on X on Sunday. The EU is “ready to support reforms", she added.
The movement's representatives pledged to break up monopolies and review large infrastructure contracts signed under Mr Vucic. Those include the $2.4 billion Expo 2027 that Vucic has touted as his legacy project. In Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index 2025, Serbia’s score was the lowest in two decades.
The Student List has operated through a patchwork of “plenums”, or cells, without a distinct leader and has not yet announced its candidate for prime minister.
On election night, the movement was late with a victory speech as its representatives could not decide who would speak on their behalf.
“The Student List will have a very hard job organising the transfer of power, which Vucic will probably try to boycott,” said Zarko Puhovski, an independent political analyst from Croatia. “Their list is dominated by people with little political or government experience.”