Aleksandar Vucic conceded defeat on Sunday to a slate of students and academics that grew out of two years of protests over a deadly railway station collapse.
The big picture: Vucic told supporters at his party headquarters in Belgrade that the count was clear: "On the basis of a sample, it is clear that we have lost these elections, the Student List has won, they will have between 135 and 140 seats and we will have 105."
- Pollsters CeSID-IPSPS put the Student List at 138 deputies in the 250-seat parliament against 104 for Vucic's Serbian Progressive party, with minority parties taking the rest.
By the numbers: Turnout reached 67.6% by 7pm local time, per monitors CeSID and Ipsos, the highest since the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1992. Some polling stations reported waits of up to two hours.
The backstory: The movement traces to November 2024, when a concrete canopy collapsed at the Novi Sad railway station and killed 16 people. Evidence of slipshod construction, fraud and corruption turned student grief into a national anti-government campaign, and Vucic resigned the presidency last month to gamble on a snap vote.
- The students answered by fielding 250 candidates for 250 seats, from academics to athletes and farmers, and drew an estimated 150,000 people to their final Belgrade rally.
What they're saying: "Dear Serbia, tonight the voice of the people is being heard," said Radomir Saicic, a Belgrade University professor speaking for the students. "Tonight we celebrate victory, tomorrow we build the future."
Why it matters: Serbia is an EU candidate country and a Russian partner, so a change of government reshapes a pivot point in the Balkans. The win also hands a template to the youth protests that have spread across Europe this autumn.
