Serbia’s Student Movement Challenges Vucic Before Vote

More than 100,000 people rallied in Belgrade on Thursday to back Serbia’s protesting youth movement, days before a snap election that has become a referendum-like contest between Aleksandar Vucic and student-backed candidates. The independent Archive of Public Gatherings estimated about 150,000 people attended the final campaign rally. The crowd filled the central square and nearby blocks. They chanted “victory.”

A leaderless challenge

The Student List, a leaderless movement of student-backed candidates, poses the biggest threat to Vucic and the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) since it took power in 2012. University professor Jugoslav Gasic is one of its 250 candidates. Addressing the rally, he said: “We are putting an end to 14 years of humiliation, chaos and betrayal, and to decades of putting personal and party interests above yours.”

The crowd answered with chants of “Victory, victory!” Gasic told them: “You deserve better, and we know how to deliver it. Students are winning!” The movement’s candidates are seeking power through the election, while observers said the campaign has put smaller parties at risk of being sidelined in the 250-member parliament.

The protests began after a canopy collapsed at the newly renovated Novi Sad railway station in 2024, killing 16 people. University students led the movement, first demanding an independent investigation. Later, they called for early elections. Protests against Vucic have continued for two years.

Marija Nedeljkovic Radic, 47, told the French AFP news agency she came to support the Student List “because young people finally gave me hope that it is possible to live in a normal country.” She added: “Really, for the first time in my life, I believe that it is possible.”

The state and the ballot

Vucic has dominated Serbian politics for more than a decade, serving as either prime minister or president. As protests mounted, he announced a snap election last month and resigned as president. Many see the move as tactical, intended to let him run for prime minister.

At a sports hall on Thursday, Vucic accused the student movement of threatening the state. “Let us never forget how they tried to bring down our state. Let us always protect and defend it,” he told supporters. Then he urged them: “Let us go out and defeat them! Defeat them decisively!” He has repeatedly called the movement a foreign-funded coup.

Vucic controls the Serbian police and said he would quash unrest after the vote. Analysts warned that a close result could trigger post-election instability if both sides declared victory. The election is scheduled for Sunday.

Warnings over a fair vote

Days before polling, Serbian civil society groups warned that conditions for a “free and fair election” were lacking. A joint statement from 24 organisations said its assessment relied on documented findings, “not based on isolated incidents, opposition claims or political disagreement with the government.”

The coming vote will test the SNS’s hold on power and the student movement’s electoral challenge. But the 24 organisations’ warning concerns the conditions in which people cast ballots, while Vucic has already said he’ll use the police to suppress unrest afterward. The crowd’s demand for political change now confronts the machinery of a state whose leader is urging supporters to defeat it. The election is Sunday.