From tragedy to triumph: How Serbia’s students toppled Vučić

What began as a student protest against corruption, administrative failures and years of power concentrated in the hands of a few gradually grew into a nationwide movement. Ordinary citizens, farmers, teachers, artists and people from different walks of life joined the demonstrations, taking their grievances to the streets. After nearly two years of sustained protests, Serbia’s long-serving leader Aleksandar Vučić was forced to concede defeat in the parliamentary elections held on October 25, 2026. The Student List, an electoral coalition led by the student movement, secured a sweeping victory, signalling a major shift in the country’s political landscape. Yet electoral success is only the beginning. The real challenge lies in rebuilding democratic institutions weakened by years of centralised power.

The movement took shape on November 1, 2024, after a concrete canopy collapsed at a railway station in Novi Sad, a city in northern Serbia, killing 16 people. The tragedy plunged the country into mourning, but grief soon gave way to anger. How could a canopy at a recently renovated railway station collapse? Had there been negligence during construction? Were public funds properly accounted for, and had the quality of the work been adequately scrutinised? These questions quickly became central to a growing political controversy.

Protesters alleged that corruption in public projects, close ties between those in power and construction contractors, and a lack of administrative accountability had contributed to the disaster. Although not every allegation about the causes of the collapse could be treated as a matter of established fact, the tragedy became a focal point for years of accumulated public anger. For Serbia’s students, it was no longer simply a question of a structural failure. It was about a system in which those responsible for public safety could seemingly evade accountability.

The first demonstrations were relatively small. In Novi Sad and Belgrade, thousands gathered to mourn the victims, holding vigils and observing minutes of silence. Protesters also blocked roads for 16 minutes, one minute for each person who had died. Before long, however, it became clear that the anger ran much deeper than a single tragedy. The demonstrations were turning into a broader demand for transparency in public works, action against corruption and accountability from those in power.

University students became the movement’s driving force. They boycotted classes at institutions across the country and began organising discussions to decide how the protests should proceed. These deliberations took place through student assemblies, known as plenums, where decisions were made collectively rather than handed down by an individual leader. It was a deliberate departure from the politics of personality that had come to dominate Serbia.

The importance of this organisational model becomes clearer when viewed against the country's political backdrop. Aleksandar Vučić and his Serbian Progressive Party had long wielded considerable influence over Serbian politics. The students believed that challenging a system built around concentrated power required them to practise democracy within their own movement. Collective decision-making was not merely an organisational choice; it was part of the political alternative they wanted to offer.

Their demands were straightforward. They called for a full investigation into the Novi Sad disaster, action against those responsible, and the public release of documents and contracts relating to government projects. They also pressed for wider reforms to tackle corruption and the abuse of power.

Initially, the government tried to contain the protests, but the movement continued to grow. Farmers, teachers, actors, lawyers and people from a wide range of professions joined the students. In January 2025, Serbia’s then prime minister, Miloš Vučević, a close political ally of Vučić, resigned. His departure followed major blockades and sustained demonstrations in Belgrade. It was the movement’s first significant political breakthrough, but it did little to quell the anger on the streets.

Two months later, in March 2025, Belgrade witnessed an enormous student-led demonstration, drawing hundreds of thousands of people. It was one of the largest anti-government gatherings in Serbia’s recent history and demonstrated just how far the movement had travelled from its origins on university campuses.

Around this time, a symbol emerged that would become synonymous with the protests: a red handprint. For the demonstrators, the image conveyed a simple but powerful message. The government could not wash its hands of the deaths caused by corruption and administrative failure. The red hand became a visual expression of that responsibility, appearing at demonstrations and helping unite protesters around a shared cause.

The movement was also reaching beyond the major cities. Students began travelling to smaller towns and villages, often walking long distances to meet people and explain their demands. Along the way, local residents offered them food, water and places to stay. These encounters helped build relationships that might otherwise have remained beyond the reach of a largely university-based movement.

The journeys proved important in widening the movement’s social base. Students were no longer seen simply as an urban, educated constituency protesting against the government. Their presence in rural communities created opportunities for people from different social and political backgrounds to come together around common concerns. In November 2025, marking the first anniversary of the Novi Sad tragedy, students walked from Belgrade to Novi Sad in a demonstration that renewed public attention to the disaster and kept the movement alive.

One of the defining features of Serbia’s student movement was its refusal to elevate a single individual into the role of supreme leader. Student assemblies and organising groups at different universities determined their own programmes. Responsibilities such as managing social media, organising demonstrations, arranging transport and spreading the movement’s message were shared among participants.

This decentralised structure made the movement harder to weaken through the arrest or targeting of a single leader. But it also had its limitations. Reaching a consensus could become difficult when disagreements arose, and the challenge grew more complicated as the movement began to consider entering electoral politics. A movement capable of bringing hundreds of thousands of people together on the streets would also have to find a way to translate that collective energy into a coherent political programme.

The students nevertheless succeeded in establishing a central message: their struggle was not simply about replacing one political party with another. It was about restoring accountability to the functioning of the state. By focusing on investigations into corruption, stronger independent institutions and improvements in education, they built support well beyond university campuses. Various opposition political groups associated with the movement eventually backed the students’ electoral initiative as well.

Preparing for the election required a different kind of mobilisation. Protesters organised training sessions to help volunteers scrutinise vote counts and serve as observers at polling stations. According to Serbia’s election-monitoring organisation CRTA, the number of domestic election observers increased significantly. Their presence was intended to make irregularities more difficult and strengthen public confidence in the electoral process.

The Guardian, reporting on October 26, said that after results from approximately 96.9 per cent of polling stations had been processed, the student-backed list had secured around 52.6 per cent of the vote, compared with approximately 39.2 per cent for Vučić’s coalition. Preliminary calculations suggested that the student-backed alliance could win around 140 of the 250 seats in parliament, comfortably above the 126 needed for a majority.

But winning an election and running a country are two very different things. The student movement’s representatives have limited experience of governing, and the coalition brings together people with differing political views. How they will form a government, who will lead it and what concrete measures they will take to tackle corruption remain unanswered questions. The challenge now is to turn the movement’s broad promises into policies and institutions capable of delivering lasting change.

Serbia’s foreign relations could also enter a period of uncertainty. Under Vučić, the country maintained relations with the European Union while continuing to cultivate close ties with Russia. How a new government might navigate this delicate balance, particularly as it pursues domestic reforms, remains to be seen.

Ultimately, the significance of Serbia’s student movement will depend on what comes after its electoral victory. The protests demonstrated that a broad-based citizens’ movement could challenge an entrenched political establishment and win public support on a remarkable scale. Whether that victory translates into lasting democratic change will depend on the students’ ability to preserve the spirit of collective action, strengthen democratic institutions and hold those in power accountable—including themselves.