Last night, the streets of Belgrade celebrated the incontestable victory of the Student List against Serbia's strongman of the last three decades. Aleksandar Vucic was even ahead of the projections and official results and, less than two hours after the closing of the polling stations, he acknowledged his defeat, similar to that of his ally Viktor Orban in Hungary in April against Peter Magyar's list. The Hungarian Prime Minister took a few minutes to congratulate his neighbors on his official X account: "In Serbia, Vucic has acknowledged his defeat. The Students' List has obtained the absolute majority in the elections. Celebrations have begun in the streets throughout Serbia. Does this sound familiar to you?"
According to official data, with 96% of the count, the students – represented by 250 intellectuals, teachers, athletes and other personalities of Serbian public life of different ideologies – would have obtained 52.6% of the votes and, therefore, 141 of the 250 seats in Parliament. The SNS and its allies would have remained at 39.2% and 103 deputies. No opposition party would have achieved the 3% necessary to seat a deputy in the Assembly, so the six seats are intended for ethnic minorities, who do not have to meet that legal threshold. The Hungarian minority (Alliance of Hungarians of Vojvodina) gets three seats, the Albanians two (through the unified list of Albanian parties in the Preevo Valley) and the Bosnians one (for one of the two lists in the Sandak region).
"The victory of the Student List represents a historic moment for democracy in Serbia, in the Balkan region and in Europe. After Viktor Orban, another authoritarian ruler has been defeated in Europe," Serbian political scientist, essayist and diplomat Ivan Vejvoda, who was an advisor on foreign policy and European affairs in the government of reformist Prime Minister Zoran Dinic (assassinated in 2003) and his government, told this newspaper a few hours after the results were known. successor, Zoran Zivkovic.
"It is clear that we have lost these elections," Vucic declared to his followers after 9:30 p.m. at his party headquarters in the Serbian capital. "The list of student strikers has won," he admitted, and attributed the result to foreign influences: "I want people to know that this has been the consummation of a revolution orchestrated with the direct support of several European countries and the American deep state, the same one that is also against President Trump," he declared.
The elections were presented by the student movement as "an anti-Vucic referendum" and the results show that they were a two-way fight. It was the first time since 2012 that an electoral event raised the possibility of political alternation, but the absolute majority achieved surprised even the experts. "The high participation throughout the day predicted this victory. It shows that, even with a corrupt Government, there is a democratic society that willingly defeated a regime that controls practically everything, as happened in Hungary," says Mira Milosevich, principal researcher at the Elcano Royal Institute.
A point similar to that highlighted for this newspaper by Naim Leo Berisi, director of the Institute of European Affairs (IEA) in Belgrade. "The defeat marks a historic turning point, ending 14 years of SNS hegemony and demonstrating that even a deeply entrenched political system can be challenged through sustained citizen mobilization and democratic elections." Although, on the day after 25-O, this expert emphasizes that there is still a lot of work to be done: "Winning an election is considerably easier than dismantling the networks of corruption, institutional co-option and political clientelism developed over the last decade. Serbia now faces a decisive test: whether the student-led movement will be able to translate its electoral victory into an authentic democratic transformation, restore the rule of law and reactivate the country's European integration."
The European question is key. Serbia has been a candidate for EU membership since 2012 but, in recent times, its path has come to a halt, while its neighbor Montenegro – which became independent from Serbia in 2006 after a referendum – could become the 28th state next year. The President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Council, António Costa, and the Commissioner for Enlargement, Marta Kos, congratulated the winners last night and predicted a future for the country within the EU. "What unites the winners is the determination to dismantle Vucic and his power apparatus. Without a doubt, the European Union can help in this task," highlights analyst Adnan Cerimagic, from the European Stability Initiative (ESI) think tank in Berlin. "The big question is whether he will know how to find the right approach, and whether the Student List and its future prime minister and ministers [being a representative list, it is not known whether the cardiologist Ilija Sranovi, number 1 in the candidacy will occupy this position] will know what to ask for and what to guarantee."
"For 14 years, Serbia was governed like a reality show: a single man monopolizing the media and deciding everything, from which roads were paved in small towns to the turns in foreign policy. The Student List represents the antipodes of that model. It lacks defined leadership, a hierarchical structure and uniform positions. This is not the model that Vucic built, and both Serbian citizens and their partners in the region, in Europe and in the rest of the world they will have to get used to it, learning along with the Student List how Serbia will be governed in the months and years to come," Cerimagic reflects.
