Serbia Student Bloc Wins 140 Seats

Serbia held snap parliamentary elections on Sunday, marking the highest voter turnout in the country's history over the last three decades. The vote concluded a two-year period of sustained protests against the ruling government.

Aleksandar Vucic, the president who has dominated Serbian politics for more than ten years, acknowledged the defeat to his supporters. He stated, "It is clear that we have lost these elections."

Exit polls indicate the Serbian Progressive Party, or SNS, will secure 105 seats in the 250-member parliament. The opposition Student List is projected to take between 135 and 140 seats, granting them a clear legislative majority.

The political movement originated after a fatal structural failure in Novi Sad. On November 1, 2024, a train station canopy collapsed, killing 16 people. University students and professors organized the initial demonstrations, which expanded into a wider coalition including doctors and workers.

The Student List campaigned on a platform to reduce corruption, separate politics from public institutions, and restore civil rights. Ilija Srdanovic, a professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Novi Sad, served as the campaign leader for the group.

Vucic, who was born in Belgrade in 1970, entered politics in 1993 with the Serbian Radical Party. He co-founded the SNS in 2008 with Tomislav Nikolic to shift the party toward mainstream European alignment. The SNS assumed power in 2012 after promising to combat organized crime.

Journalist Safeta Bisevac noted that Vucic was initially less popular than Nikolic and acted primarily as the party organizer. Bisevac observed that while the party made promises regarding corruption, authorities expanded their control over media and state institutions during the tenure.

Vucic served as first deputy prime minister from 2012 to 2014 and as prime minister before becoming president in 2017. He won re-election in 2022, with his term originally scheduled to last until 2027. Facing pressure from the protests, he resigned in September and called for early elections while maintaining influence over state policy.

Official data cited by Reuters shows the economy grew during this period. Unemployment dropped from 26 percent to between 8 and 9 percent. Nominal GDP nearly tripled to approximately 90 billion euros. Annual foreign direct investment rose from 800 million euros in 2012 to a record 5.2 billion euros in 2024.

Political scientist Dusko Radosavljevic described the students as giving voice to citizen anger. He characterized the past decade as a time of systematic pressure and the destruction of social institutions, noting that intelligence services monitored political opponents while critical analysis was removed from public media.