Serbia's Student List Secures 140 Seats as Vucic Concedes Defeat

The Student List is projected to win between 135 and 140 of the 250 seats in the Serbian parliament, according to vote samples released after Sunday's snap election.

Aleksandar Vucic, the president who has dominated Serbian politics for more than a decade, admitted defeat to the student-led coalition. Speaking to supporters after preliminary results showed his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) winning approximately 105 seats, Vucic stated, "It is clear that we have lost these elections."

The election featured the highest voter turnout in over 30 years. The surge in participation followed nearly two years of mass protests that began in November 2024. The unrest was triggered on November 1, 2024, when a train station canopy collapsed in Novi Sad, killing 16 people.

The movement evolved from street demonstrations into a formal political platform called the Student List. The coalition campaigned on promises to combat corruption, depoliticize public institutions, and restore citizens' rights. Ilija Srdanovic, a professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Novi Sad, led the group during the campaign. Vucic had previously dismissed the demonstrators, who included doctors, professors, and workers, as "blockaders" attempting to destabilize the country.

Vucic's political career began in 1993 when he joined the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party led by Vojislav Seselj. In 2008, Vucic and Tomislav Nikolic founded the Serbian Progressive Party to move toward mainstream European politics. Nikolic was initially more popular, but Vucic emerged as the party's key organizer. The SNS took power in 2012, promising to fight corruption and organized crime.

Under Vucic's leadership, the Serbian economy expanded. Unemployment fell from 26 percent to between 8 and 9 percent, and nominal gross domestic product nearly tripled to approximately 90 billion euros. Annual foreign direct investment grew from about 800 million euros in 2012 to a record 5.2 billion euros in 2024. The government also built a network of modern motorways.

However, critics argue that economic growth did not proportionally improve living standards. Journalist Safeta Bisevac, who has covered Vucic's career for years, noted that while the fight against corruption yielded modest results, the state expanded its control over institutions and media. Bisevac observed that Vucic "made many promises and fulfilled few of them, but in the meantime, he established almost complete control over the state apparatus."

Vucic served as first deputy prime minister from 2012 to 2014, became prime minister in 2014, and was elected president in 2017. He won re-election in 2022, with his term originally scheduled to run until 2027. Under pressure from the student protests, he resigned in September and called for early elections. Although the presidency is constitutionally limited, Vucic maintained dominant influence over state policy.

Political scientist Dusko Radosavljevic described the victory as a reflection of public sentiment. Radosavljevic stated that the students "simply gave a voice to the justified anger of citizens." He characterized the past decade under Vucic as a period of "systematic pressure and the destruction of social institutions," noting that state intelligence services spent more time monitoring political opponents than performing their core duties.