Serbia’s Student List challenges Vučić’s party in parliamentary vote
A movement born after the Novi Sad station disaster has put forward nonpolitical candidates to challenge Serbia’s long-governing party.
By Lucas Ferreira · Science & Environment Writer
3 min read
Serbia’s Student List is taking a movement born in street protests into Sunday’s parliamentary election, challenging the Serbian Progressive Party’s hold on government. The Serbia Student List election campaign matters because the group has selected candidates from outside conventional politics while seeking to unseat a party in power since 2012, NPR reported.
The list grew from student-led demonstrations after a concrete canopy collapsed at the recently renovated railway station in Novi Sad on Nov. 1, 2024, killing 16 people. Protesters accused President Aleksandar Vučić of presiding over widespread corruption, while The Guardian reported that there had been no official finding on the cause of the collapse or official accountability at the time of its report.
What is Serbia’s Student List?
The Student List emerged from the protest movement, but its candidates are not students. BBC News reported that its slate includes people from fields such as education, medicine, farming, science and the arts; NPR identified former Olympic decathlete Mihail Dudaš as one candidate.
Activists worked with students around Serbia to choose candidates and deliberately sought people without prior political careers, according to NPR. The movement has no formal leader, BBC reported, although cardiology professor Ilija Srdanović heads its candidate list.
That distinction is central to the group’s pitch: it is a student-led electoral project drawing candidates from wider Serbian society. BBC reported that several opposition parties had withdrawn in favor of the Student List.
What is at stake in Serbia’s election?
Vučić has held Serbia’s top offices since 2014, serving as prime minister and then president, according to BBC. His Serbian Progressive Party took power in 2012, NPR reported. Vučić left the presidency last month because he could not seek a third term and is seeking to remain in power as prime minister, NPR said.
The election comes after two years of protests that widened beyond campuses. BBC reported that farmers, actors and judges joined the movement as it expanded nationally following the Novi Sad disaster.
Questions over the conditions of the vote also shadow the campaign. NPR said international monitors of earlier Serbian elections had found that Vučić’s side dominated media coverage and used state resources to its advantage. Those findings concerned previous elections, not a new assessment of Sunday’s vote.
How does Serbia elect its parliament?
Serbia elects a 250-seat parliament through a single nationwide proportional-representation constituency, BBC reported. A list must win more than 3% of the vote to secure seats, meaning voters choose among national slates rather than candidates in local districts.
NPR reported that a final Student List rally in Belgrade drew about 150,000 people during the campaign week. The group’s electoral test will show whether a protest movement organized around demands for accountability can translate its support into parliamentary representation.
This story draws on original reporting from NPR.