Serbian students declare victory as Vucic concedes defeat

Serbia’s student-backed opposition was projected to secure an outright parliamentary majority in Sunday’s snap elections as former President Aleksandar Vucic conceded defeat and thousands of people took to the streets across the country to celebrate the results.

The vote follows nearly two years of anti-government protests sparked by the 2024 collapse of a canopy at Novi Sad railway station that killed 16 people. Widespread blame on corruption for the disaster fueled some of Serbia’s largest demonstrations since strongman Slobodan Milosevic fell in 2000.

“Preliminary results show that students are convincingly leading in almost all polling stations,” Students’ List candidate Radomir Saicic said at the movement’s election headquarters. 

Huge numbers of voters headed to polls Sunday, producing the country’s highest turnout for a parliamentary election in over three decades.

Vucic conceded defeat within two hours of polls closing, sparking raucous scenes in the capital as movement supporters celebrated the end of a government they blamed for entrenched corruption.

“I feel incredible,” student Mila Martic told Agence France-Presse (AFP) at the Students’ List headquarters. 

"I feel as though I am finally living in a free country." 

Celebrating crowds filled the capital’s streets as drivers honked, people chanted, and fireworks lit the skyline.

Election officials said turnout reached nearly 65% of 6.4 million registered voters by 6 p.m. local time, two hours before polls closed, topping the just over 61% recorded in the 1993 vote.

Vucic said early figures suggested the movement could take 135 to 140 of parliament’s 250 seats, an outright majority, and blamed outside powers for the loss. 

“I want people to know, this was the validation of a revolution carried out with the direct support of various European countries and the U.S. deep state, the one that is also against President Trump,” he said.

Students spent nearly two years marching across the country to reach voters directly and counter the Serbian Progressive Party’s media machine. 

A final pre-election rally in Belgrade on Thursday drew around 150,000 people, according to an independent protest monitor.

Mirjana Nikolic, another candidate on the Students’ List, said shortly after the win was announced, “A two-year-long dream has come true.” Experts in fields such as academia and the arts make up most of the Students’ List’s 250 candidates, though few have political experience.

The movement’s platform centers on fighting corruption, having grown from calls for a transparent Novi Sad probe. Vucic, under pressure after resisting for almost two years, announced the snap election last month, citing “major turbulence on the domestic political scene,” and resigned the presidency to run for prime minister.