Serbia's students just ended 14 years of Vučić's rule — at the ballot box

Serbia's student-led opposition won a projected parliamentary majority in Sunday's snap election, ending the 14-year grip on power of Aleksandar Vučić's Serbian Progressive Party, after a campaign born out of nearly two years of anti-corruption protests.

Vučić conceded defeat on Sunday night, telling supporters that, based on a stratified sample of results, "it is clear that we have lost these elections," according to reports of his address. He projected that the Student List would win between 135 and 140 seats in the 250-member National Assembly, against around 105 for his coalition.

Projections reported by Euronews put the Student List at about 52% of the vote, with roughly 2.2 million votes against about 1.72 million for Vučić's coalition. The State Election Commission reported turnout of 64.9% by 6 p.m. local time, the highest recorded since the dissolution of Yugoslavia in 1992, according to reports of the commission's figures. Monitoring groups flagged concerns about irregularities, reports said, and complete official results were still pending when Vučić conceded.

The movement's roots lie in the November 2024 collapse of a canopy at Novi Sad railway station, which killed 16 people. The disaster triggered student-led demonstrations demanding accountability and action against corruption, and the protests grew into the biggest political challenge to Vučić, who served as prime minister from 2014 before becoming president in 2017.

The result raises immediate questions about Serbia's direction. The movement campaigned on restoring accountability and democratic freedoms, according to reports of its platform, and its victory reopens the question of Serbia's path toward the European Union — a candidacy that stalled as Brussels criticised democratic backsliding under Vučić.

For Canada, the result matters as a test of whether protest movements can still convert street power into electoral power in Europe, and for the EU enlargement debate Ottawa watches closely as it deepens its own partnership with Europe ahead of this week's Canada–EU Summit in Montréal. A new government in Belgrade also changes the cast for Balkan diplomacy, where Canada has backed democratic institutions and regional stability.

What happens next is the formal count, the formation of a government, and the first test of whether a movement built on protest can govern — starting with the accountability investigations its supporters marched for.