Another of Eastern Europe’s authoritarian leaders has been defeated by an emerging movement, with Serbia’s long-time president Aleksandar Vučić unexpectedly defeated by a student-led election campaign.
While young people in other parts of Europe have taken to the streets in recent weeks, particularly in France and Italy, demanding better education and opportunities, the Serbian student movement has had very different origins, goals, and surprising staying power. It was also a movement that focused more on students in their 20s than teens, although high school students also participated.
He was also very disciplined. And despite the government’s efforts to suggest otherwise, it did not include some forces seeking confrontation or those interested in looting.
The rise of the Serbian student movement began two years ago in the most unlikely of circumstances.
In November 2024, the canopy of a train station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed, killing 15 people, including two children.
The tragedy, caused by shoddy construction work, sparked an outpouring of anger over corruption, lack of government accountability and negligence.
The protests began with a symbolic event. Every Friday, a 15-minute silence is held in memory of the victims starting at 11:52 a.m. local time, the exact time the canopy collapsed.
The protests turned into a campaign as students’ vigils were dealt with harshly by the police. Last March, more than 300,000 people filled the streets of the capital Belgrade.
In some ways, the student movement imitated the American civil rights movement of the 1960s. Last January, Belgrade students, along with colleagues from the University of Novi Sad, decided to walk 100 kilometers (62 miles) to block three bridges in the city.
“Students tried to remind everyone of their struggle by carrying copies of the constitution,” wrote Katarina Besilevic of the University of Belgrade, referring to a bicycle campaign in which student demonstrators carried copies of the constitution.
It was also very comprehensive. “The main distinguishing feature of the student movement is its efforts to build civic solidarity across religious, ethnic and regional divides. This includes, for example, respect for religious identities and the active inclusion of Muslim and Bosniak students,” writes Marta Spara of the Warsaw Center for Eastern Studies.
The long marches across the country also allowed students to make their cause known in small towns and villages where people were unaware of the protesters’ aims because of government control of the media.
The movement’s goals soon evolved into something much bigger. It began with a desire for justice for the victims of Novi Sad, and a focus on rescuing democracy and civil society from endemic corruption, elections marked by intimidation and surveillance, and repressive state control of the media.
In this respect it was fundamentally different from student movements in other parts of Europe.
The demonstrations were then institutionalized through the creation of a student list, which resulted in a surprising victory for Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party in Sunday’s vote.
There are strong similarities with Hungary, where strongman Viktor Orban was defeated earlier this year. Both he and Mr. Vucic had been in power for more than a decade, were friendly to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and had amassed enormous power through control of the media and businesses.
Vučić did borrow Putin’s playbook, seeking to shift from president to prime minister if the constitution prevents him from running again, and by emphasizing Serbian nationalism.
Last month, Ratko Mladic, a Bosnian Serb commander convicted of crimes against humanity during the Yugoslav wars, was given a funeral with full military honors in Belgrade.
There are parallels between Serbia and Ukraine, where in 2014 protests by tens of thousands of mostly young people ultimately overthrew pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych amid massive corruption and refusal to sign an association agreement with the EU.
The spontaneous move feared Ukraine falling back into Moscow’s orbit and wanted the country’s identity to be European. It also revealed a lack of state transparency and accountability.
Similarly, the Serbian protesters claimed that their plan was “European” in that it called for the development of democratic institutions, an independent judiciary, freedom of the press, and protection of civil liberties.
In the case of Serbia, the development of the student movement may hold lessons for others.
“Volunteers organized working groups to coordinate logistics, security, legal support, and digital communications. IT students developed an encrypted platform for secure communications and coordination, while law students and lawyers built a legal response network to support detained demonstrators,” Breza Race Maksimovic and Srdja Popovic wrote in the Journal of Democracy last year.
The result is a “decentralized yet highly coordinated nature,” they added. “This mobilization is intentionally leaderless. The student assembly operates on a horizontal model, organizing nightly plenary sessions to propose tactics, discuss, and vote.”
It may have worked well in the face of authoritarian states. There were no leaders to arrest. However, a change of government will be difficult. And it is a world apart from the strict and disciplined Hungarian opposition under Peter Magyar.
The challenges ahead are difficult for this novice movement. There are very few candidates with experience in government. The list of candidates for the election included lesser-known academics, lawyers, athletes, farmers, and artists.
However, it will likely receive support from the European Union. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Monday congratulated List on its victory and said it was “ready to support reforms on the rule of law, press freedom, the fight against corruption and strong democratic institutions.”
