Serbia: Vučić admits defeat as the Student List takes the lead
· BehindLines newsroom
Aleksandar Vučić acknowledged defeat on the evening of Sunday 25 October, after Serbia's snap parliamentary election. According to Al Jazeera, he said that a sample of ballots showed the Student List winning between 135 and 140 of the 250 seats in parliament, against roughly 105 for his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). He stressed himself that these figures were not final.
In the AP account carried by CBS News, the leader claimed about 1.7 million votes for his camp and some 2.2 million for the list that grew out of the student movement. Early projections by the pollsters Ipsos and CeSID gave the students around 52% of the vote. France 24 reports that the CRTA election watchdog put the Student List at 51.5% and the governing coalition at 40.2%. Final official results had not yet been published.
Turnout came close to 70%, the highest level since Yugoslavia broke apart in 1992, according to the pollsters and electoral commission cited by France 24. The announcement brought supporters of the student list onto the streets of Belgrade and other cities, ABC News reports.
The vote caps almost two years of protests. The movement began after a concrete canopy fell at the railway station in Novi Sad in November 2024, killing 16 people. Since then, students have campaigned against corruption and what they describe as authoritarian rule. Vučić had dominated Serbian politics for 14 years and had been endorsed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, AP notes.
In his speech, Vučić blamed independent media and foreign interference, which he did not substantiate. Election monitors, for their part, reported dozens of irregularities during polling day, including voters photographing their ballots, a possible sign of pressure, and attempts to buy votes.
For Serbia, a candidate to join the European Union, this is a major change of power. Several steps remain, however: the announcement of official results, then the formation of a government. The student movement, which presents itself without a designated leader, had not yet said whom it would put forward as prime minister.