If it holds, the most radical thing about it will be the paperwork. A construction file reopened, an inspection report read out loud, a budget line moved by one vote. If it does not hold, the failure will not look dramatic either. It will look like a parliament that cannot assemble a majority, and a crowd that eventually goes home. Neither outcome is visible yet. What is visible, on the evening of Oct 25, 2026, is a concession.
Aleksandar Vucic conceded defeat to a student-led protest movement in Serbia’s parliamentary election, telling members of the Serbian Progressive Party: “It is clear we have lost these elections, the Student List has won.” [1] Abroad, he had long been described as an ally of Vladimir Putin. At home, for a country he had led for 14 years, the result is a seismic political shift.
The projected arithmetic comes from a representative sample by the pollsters CESID-IPSPS. It puts the students’ candidate list at 138 members of parliament and Vucic’s SNS at 104. Parliament has 250 seats, so 138 is enough seats to pass ordinary legislation without relying on other parties and 104 is a substantial opposition, not a footnote.
Turnout was nearly 70 per cent of registered voters, the highest since the break-up of Yugoslavia in 1992. Turnout measures the share of registered voters who actually cast a ballot. On Sunday the measure was also a picture: lines snaked out of polling stations in cities and towns across the country, which The Telegraph read as a sign of a widespread desire for change.
The Canopy That Broke a Government
The concrete problem has a date and a place: 2024, the city of Novi Sad, and a train station canopy that collapsed and killed 16 people. The movement now heading for a majority grew out of that collapse. It blamed the deaths on shoddy construction, government negligence and corruption, and has since projected those issues onto a wider scale — from one structure to a system.
The demonstrations ran for almost two years before they were converted into votes. They were student-led, and they were aimed at perceived corruption and creeping authoritarianism. The candidate list that emerged carried both: the specific death and the general charge.
Dijana Hrka became the face of the Student List movement after her son Stefan died in the Novi Sad accident, aged 27. Her account of the years before the collapse is not complicated: “Since Aleksandar Vučić came to power, we have not had a single day of peace.” [1] The pressure forced Vucic to bring forward an election that had been due in December 2027. He called the snap vote in September, and it was held on Oct 25. A snap election is one held before its scheduled date — here, brought forward from a vote that had been due in December 2027.
What a Handover Looks Like at Dawn
Cars honked, students shouted “victory” and “he’s done”, and a woman named Tanja, celebrating in the street, gave the evening its shortest summary: “Unbelievable happiness and joy and we have finally got rid of this mafia. I am so happy I cannot speak.” At the students’ headquarters, Radomir Sajcic, a professor at Belgrade University speaking on their behalf, framed the night as an opening rather than a finish: “Dear Serbia, tonight the voice of the people is being heard. Tonight we celebrate victory, tomorrow we build the future.” [1] Dijana Hrka was in the crowd in Belgrade, in tears. To N1 television: “I have been waiting for this moment for two years.” And then the demand: “Now I expect that they will all be held accountable.” She had already set out, in an earlier interview with The Telegraph, what she expected from the other side: “In all of his 12 years in power he has been stealing that victory and if our students win, he will 100 per cent try not to give them power.”
