Vučić concedes Serbia election as student movement wins projected parliamentary majority

Aleksandar Vučić has conceded defeat in Serbia’s snap parliamentary election, acknowledging a major victory for the student-led movement that has challenged his rule for almost two years. Speaking at the headquarters of his Serbian Progressive Party, or SNS, Vučić said early results made it clear that his party had lost. He projected between 135 and 140 seats for the youth-backed Students’ List and about 105 for the SNS in the 250-seat parliament.

The figures are preliminary rather than final results. A representative sample cited by France 24 gave the Students’ List 138 seats and the SNS 104, with the remaining seats going to ethnic minority parties. DW reported that Serbia’s election commission put turnout at nearly 70%, the highest since the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1992.

The BBC gave an earlier turnout figure of 64.9% two hours before polls closed, illustrating that participation estimates were updated as counting progressed. The vote followed nearly two years of demonstrations triggered by the collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad in 2024, which killed 16 people. Protesters blamed corruption, poor construction standards and a lack of accountability for public infrastructure, allegations the authorities rejected.

What began as university blockades and marches expanded to include teachers, farmers and other groups. The movement eventually decided to contest the election through the Students’ List, a slate that drew candidates from professions including medicine, acting, academia and sport. It has no obvious single leader and attracted voters who had previously been divided among opposition parties.

Its platform called for officials who broke rules to be removed, an end to party loyalists running public enterprises and greater independence for Serbia’s public broadcaster. The leading candidate, Ilija Srdanović, told the BBC that the result would create “a free state”; that statement reflects the movement’s political message, not an independent assessment of the country’s institutions. Celebrations followed Vučić’s concession in Belgrade and Novi Sad.

Supporters chanted “victory”, sounded car horns and set off fireworks. Student representatives urged calm before the result, while France 24 reported that police in riot gear had cordoned off the area around the electoral commission and that local media recorded several violent incidents during the day. The result ends more than a decade of dominance by Vučić and the SNS, which won parliamentary elections in 2012.

Vučić became prime minister in 2014 and president in 2017. Unable to seek a third presidential term, he had called the snap election and was seeking to return as prime minister. Critics have accused him of concentrating power, weakening democratic institutions and undermining independent media; he and his party deny those allegations.

The election will be watched closely in Europe because Serbia is a candidate for European Union membership. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen congratulated the Students’ List and offered support for reforms involving the rule of law, media freedom, corruption and democratic institutions. Serbia maintains close ties with Russia and has refused to join Western sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, adding an international dimension to the change in parliament.

The reports do not yet establish how the new parliamentary majority will form a government or how the leaderless movement will organize itself in office.