Aleksandar Vucic acknowledges the student opposition’s victory in Serbia’s snap election

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has acknowledged his party’s defeat in the snap parliamentary election held on Sunday, declaring that the Student List, a student-led opposition movement, won the vote. According to estimates presented by Vucic, the movement is expected to secure between 135 and 140 seats, while his party would win approximately 105 seats.

Vucic said the results were not yet final, but admitted that no other political formation would have managed to enter Parliament. The announcement was followed by celebrations in Belgrade. Locals honked their horns in the streets, while students chanted “victory” and “it’s over.”

The election was called in September, after nearly two years of student-led protests against corruption and what they denounced as the authorities’ authoritarian tendencies. The movement was triggered by the deaths of 16 people in 2024, following the collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad.

The protests attracted broad public support and turned the Student List into the main political threat to Vucic, who has led Serbia since 2014, first as prime minister and then as president, since 2017. The election result could mark the beginning of a major shift in Serbia’s political landscape.