Serbia's student movement defeats Vučić and prepares to form a government

The movement grew out of nationwide protests triggered by the collapse of a concrete canopy at Novi Sad railway station on November 1, 2024. Sixteen people were killed, according to News18.

From those protests emerged the Student List, an electoral movement challenging Aleksandar Vučić and his ruling party. Il Post described its victory as the achievement of a movement that had not even existed two years earlier.

The October 25, 2026 snap parliamentary election became a showdown between Vučić and the student-led opposition. Global News reported high turnout and gathering tensions around the vote.

Turnout approached 70 percent, the highest since the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1992, according to AP. Vučić conceded defeat that Sunday.

"It is clear that we have lost these elections," he said in an unusually early speech congratulating his opponents, The New York Times reported on October 26.

Reports the next day showed an outright parliamentary majority for the Student List, although the seat counts differed. The Conversation cited preliminary results giving it 141 of 250 seats, while La Repubblica reported 140 elected lawmakers. Deutschlandfunk put its vote share at just over 52 percent.

The celebrations continued beyond election night. On October 27, Al Jazeera reported that thousands had gathered in Belgrade for a second night to celebrate the movement's victory.

The election has delivered a majority, but not yet a named head of government. The Student List had still to nominate a prime minister candidate, the Financial Times reported on October 26.

The movement must also decide how it will relate to the lawmakers elected on its list, who are not themselves students, according to Il Post. That makes the transition more than a choice of personnel: the protest movement and its parliamentary representatives still need to define their relationship.

An analyst in Belgrade told Reuters that the new government would probably have a limited remit focused on fighting corruption and reforming the state, according to CNN Brasil. That is an assessment of its likely direction, not an agreed government programme.

The immediate decisions are the prime ministerial nomination and the relationship between the movement and its elected lawmakers. Those choices will give the first concrete indication of how the Student List intends to govern, following the unresolved questions reported by Il Post.

Foreign policy is another open issue. Euronews reported hopes for a reset with the European Union, but said the movement's stance on Russia sanctions and Kosovo left Brussels cautious. Al Jazeera cautioned that those expecting a turn towards the West may have to wait while the new government addresses domestic issues.