Now it’s Serbia: Student protesters challenge ruling party
After nearly two years of protests, student activist Masa Perepeliuc believes Serbia’s grassroots movement can end more than 14 years of rule by the governing party in elections on Sunday.
“I am sure we will win, and I am sure that on the 26th (Monday) we will wake up in a free Serbia,” the 21-year-old political science student in Belgrade told AFP ahead of the snap vote.
For Perepeliuc and thousands of student activists, the election marks the culmination of a campaign against a government they accuse of deep-rooted corruption.
The movement emerged after 16 people were killed when a concrete canopy collapsed at Novi Sad’s newly renovated train station in November 2024.
The tragedy sparked some of Serbia’s largest protests since the fall of strongman Slobodan Milosevic in 2000 and snowballed into a political challenge to former president Aleksandar Vucic and his right-wing populist Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), which has held power since 2012.
Most of the 250 candidates on the Student List have never held public office, with many coming from academia and professional circles rather than party politics.
The movement remains largely leaderless, with assemblies based around university faculties voting to select candidates.
Vucic, by contrast, has concentrated power and cultivated an image as an indispensable statesman, walking a diplomatic tightrope between the neighbouring European Union and Russia.
“We are not looking for a new leader around whom another cult of personality will be built,” the students’ website states.
Radomir Saicic, a candidate on the student list, said the movement offered an alternative to the “political games” of the past.
“This is a wave of popular discontent, hope and faith in victory that cannot be stopped,” the chemistry professor said.
Smears, intimidation
The students have faced a formidable ruling-party machine backed by dozens of pro-government media outlets, including tabloids that regularly target opponents.
Saicic said activists had been wiretapped, followed, arrested, or harassed.
Dozens of protesters have been detained, some accused of plotting to overthrow the constitutional order.
Cars have ploughed into demonstrations several times, while masked men have violently confronted protesters.
Earlier this year, digital rights group SHARE Foundation said the phones of people linked to the movement had been infected with sophisticated spyware, though authorities have denied any knowledge of it.
Vucic, who resigned in September to run for prime minister, has repeatedly called the movement a foreign-backed coup attempt, a claim widely echoed by supportive media.
“People often can’t see the other side, simply because that is how the media in Serbia work,” Perepeliuc said.
Broad appeal
Serbia lacks reliable independent polling, and surveys have produced widely differing results.
Right-leaning think tank New Serbian Political Thought (NSPM) published a poll this week putting the student list ahead of the SNS by 44.5 percent to 42.7 percent.
But a September poll by Faktor Plus, seen as close to the authorities, put the SNS ahead at 48.6 per cent and the students at 37.1 per cent.
Political scientist Dusan Vucicevic nevertheless expects the students to win more than 40 percent of the vote, significantly better than most opposition groups under SNS rule.
He attributed their appeal to occupying the political center and largely sidestepping divisive foreign-policy issues, particularly relations with Russia.
Students have organised some of Serbia’s biggest demonstrations in decades, including a March 2025 rally in Belgrade that drew around 300,000 people, according to an independent count.
As they marched across the country, residents in smaller towns greeted them with food, flags and fireworks. z
The movement has promised measures ranging from improved healthcare to more affordable housing, but its central theme remains the fight against corruption.
