---
title: Serbia's Student Movement Ends Vučić's 14-Year Rule
description: Serbia's Student List won a majority on 25th October 2026 as turnout hit a 34-year high. What Vučić's defeat means for Serbia, Russia and the EU.
author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
date: 2026-10-26T07:16:20.672Z
updated: 2026-10-26T07:21:19.640Z
canonical: https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/serbia-election-vucic-concedes-students
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/pexels-34432798.webp
categories: Politics, EU Focus
content_type: Analysis
region: Serbia
publication: Sovereign Magazine
---

Aleksandar Vučić did not wait for the official count. On Sunday night, at the headquarters of his Serbian Progressive Party in Belgrade, the man who has dominated Serbian politics as prime minister or president since 2014 told his supporters that a stratified sample of the vote left no room for doubt: 'it is clear that we have lost these elections'. He put the Student List on 135 to 140 of the 250 seats in parliament, well past the 126 needed for a majority, and his own coalition on around 105.

Within minutes, tens of thousands of people filled the main boulevards of Belgrade. Cars honked, a brass band struck up on the street and crowds in Belgrade, Novi Sad and other cities chanted that Aleksandar was gone.

Turnout was close to 70 per cent, the highest Serbia has recorded since the break-up of Yugoslavia in 1992. Queues snaked out of polling stations across the country, and Vučić himself waited nearly two hours to cast his ballot. By his own figures, the Student List took around 2.2 million votes against roughly 1.7 million for his coalition.

## The vote came a week before the anniversary of the Novi Sad disaster

Next Sunday, 1st November, marks two years since the concrete canopy of the railway station in Novi Sad collapsed onto the people below and killed 16 of them. The station had been renovated twice before it fell. Critics blamed graft and careless disregard for safety rules, and university students began demanding that someone be held responsible.

Their demand grew into the largest protest movement Serbia has seen in a generation. Faculties were shut, and teachers, farmers and workers joined the students on the streets. The prime minister resigned in January 2025. Vučić described the protests as a colour revolution directed from the West and said the students were funded by foreign agents in Croatia and Montenegro, a charge they rejected. Rights groups say repression worsened as the protests went on, and a crackdown on demonstrators drew international criticism. Vučić and his party denied every accusation of repression and corruption.

## The winning list had no students on it

The movement never named a leader, or even a spokesperson. That made it a slippery opponent for a politician who had outmanoeuvred every conventional rival for more than a decade: there was no single face for pro-government media to attack.

When the students finally took their fight to the ballot box, none of them stood for parliament. The 250 names on the Student List were mostly unknown to the public: university professors, actors, farmers, doctors and teachers. The list was headed by Ilija Srdanović, a cardiologist, who was in tears after Vučić conceded. Dejan Šoškić, a former governor of the National Bank of Serbia, was also among the candidates, and on election night he asked supporters to keep the celebrations peaceful.

Volunteers cycled and walked into villages and small towns, the rural heartland where Vučić had always been strongest, while pro-government outlets vilified them. 'This will be a free state,' Srdanović told BBC Serbian after the result.

## Vučić conceded fast, and a presidential vote follows within weeks

Few in the protest movement had believed Vučić would accept defeat so quickly. He did, though not graciously: he blamed Serbia's independent media, unnamed European governments and what he called an 'American deep state' for the loss.

Vučić resigned as president on 27th September to run for prime minister, the post that carries more formal power under Serbia's constitution. His close ally Ana Brnabić, the outgoing speaker of parliament, became acting president, and a new presidential election must be held before the end of this year. Serbian voters will therefore return to the polls within weeks, and the Progressive Party will have its first chance to win back ground before the new majority has settled into office.

## Nobody yet knows who will lead the new government

A movement that refused for two years to name a leader now has to put forward a prime minister, and it has not said who that will be. Its domestic programme is clear enough: root out corruption and repair the schools. Political analysts expect a clear-out of Vučić loyalists in the police, the security services and government ministries.

Radivoje Grujić, a Warsaw-based election consultant, told Reuters that the biggest unknowns are who will head the government, who the key ministers will be, and how they will turn promises on corruption, the rule of law and foreign policy into practice.

## Serbia's balancing act passes to new hands

Vučić spent 14 years managing three relationships at once. Russia is Serbia's traditional ally and its principal supplier of natural gas, and Vladimir Putin endorsed Vučić before the vote. China is a major investor. The European Union is Serbia's largest trading partner and the bloc Serbia has formally been trying to join for more than a decade.

The students said very little about foreign policy during the campaign. Whoever becomes prime minister will inherit the same gas contracts, the same Chinese investments and the same accession talks.

If you want a measure of how fast the region is adjusting, look at Milorad Dodik. The Bosnian Serb leader, one of the most openly pro-Russian politicians in the Balkans and a long-standing Vučić ally, congratulated the Student List within hours and promised that Republika Srpska and Serbia would keep moving forward together.

## Brussels moved within hours to back Serbia's new majority

Ursula von der Leyen was among the first leaders to congratulate the Student List, and her message went further than congratulations. The President of the European Commission said the EU was ready to support reforms on the rule of law, media freedom and the fight against corruption, and to 'work together to advance Serbia's future in the European Union'. Marta Kos, the Enlargement Commissioner, praised the historic turnout after nearly two years of protest for democracy.

The students have looked to Europe from the start. In 2025, around 80 of them cycled 1,300 kilometres from Novi Sad to Strasbourg to bring their case to the European Parliament and the Council of Europe, carrying the same demands for justice and the rule of law that the EU has set out for Serbia.

Von der Leyen's offer matches the new majority's own programme. The reforms the students promised on corruption, the courts and a free press are the reforms at the heart of [Serbia's path to EU membership](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/canada-eu-associate-membership), and European funds and investment would give a government of newcomers something concrete to deliver from its first months in office. A movement that began with grief in Novi Sad now has the European Commission ready to work alongside it.

## The second Moscow-friendly leader on the EU's edge to lose in six months

The students' victory is reminiscent of the defeat of Hungary's Viktor Orbán in April. Péter Magyar, who defeated him and is now Hungary's prime minister, assured the Serbian students of his country's support on Sunday night. Within half a year, two leaders who kept close ties with the Kremlin, one inside the EU and one on its doorstep, have both been voted out.

Next Sunday, when Novi Sad marks two years since the canopy fell, the movement that grew out of that grief will mark the date as the largest force in Serbia's parliament.

'Dear Serbia, tonight the voice of the people is being heard,' said Radomir Sajčić, a professor at Belgrade University, speaking on behalf of the students at their headquarters. 'Tonight we celebrate victory. Tomorrow we build the future.'