---
title: The Four Candidates Who Could Lead Serbia After the Student List Toppled Vučić
description: Serbia's Student List won 139 of 250 seats. Meet Ilija Srdanović, Dejan Šoškić, Radomir Saičić and Dejan Bodiroga, the names tipped to lead.
author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
date: 2026-10-28T11:26:53.929Z
updated: 2026-10-28T11:38:02.837Z
canonical: https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/four-candidates-who-could-lead-serbia
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/pexels-34432799.webp
categories: Politics, EU Focus
content_type: Feature
region: Serbia
publication: Sovereign Magazine
access: members
about:
  - type: Person
    name: Ilija Srdanović
    description: Serbian cardiologist and medical professor who headed the Student List ballot in the October 2026 parliamentary election.
    jobTitle: Lead candidate, Student List; cardiologist and professor at the University of Novi Sad Faculty of Medicine
    worksFor: Student List
  - type: Person
    name: Dejan Šoškić
    description: Serbian economist who governed the National Bank of Serbia from 2010 to 2012 and stood as a Student List candidate in the October 2026 parliamentary election.
    jobTitle: Economist, University of Belgrade; former Governor of the National Bank of Serbia
    worksFor: Student List
  - type: Person
    name: Radomir Saičić
    description: Serbian chemist and academician who stood as a Student List candidate in the October 2026 parliamentary election and has been tipped as a presidential contender.
    jobTitle: Professor of organic chemistry; member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
    worksFor: Student List
  - type: Person
    name: Dejan Bodiroga
    description: Former basketball star, two-time world champion and EuroLeague president since 2022, who stood as a Student List candidate in the October 2026 parliamentary election.
    jobTitle: President of the EuroLeague; former captain of the Yugoslav national basketball team
    worksFor: Student List
---

Two years ago this Sunday, on 1st November 2024, the concrete canopy at Novi Sad railway station fell on the people standing beneath it and killed 16 of them. On 25th October 2026, the movement born from that disaster [won a national election](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/serbia-election-vucic-concedes-students). Aleksandar Vučić, who had run Serbia as prime minister or president since 2014, conceded on television the same night.

With almost every vote counted, the Student List took 52.7 per cent of the vote against 39.2 per cent for the alliance led by Vučić's Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). That gives the students 139 of the 250 seats in parliament, comfortably above the 126 needed to govern alone. The SNS alliance holds 97 seats and minority parties hold the rest. In raw numbers, about 2.25 million people voted for the students and 1.67 million for the former ruling party.

The winners now face the one question the campaign never answered: the Student List has no leader. Students ran two years of protests without a figurehead so that the government had no single face to smear, and they carried the same rule into the election. Their candidates include doctors, professors, actors, farmers and sports stars, and none of them was presented to voters as the next prime minister.

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