Serbia Sees Signs of Record Turnout as Student Movement Challenges Vucic's Party

Serbian voters appear to have turned out in large numbers for the country's parliamentary election. Preliminary reports suggest 46% had cast their vote by 14:00 local time (13:00 GMT), nearly a million more than the comparable figure for the previous election in December 2023.

In this election a student protest movement is attempting to end the rule of longtime right-wing populist leader Aleksandar Vucic and his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), who have been in power since 2012.

The snap elections called by Vucic follow two years of student protests triggered by the 2024 collapse of a train station canopy, which killed 16 people and was seen as emblematic of corruption and negligence.

The anti-corruption movement's Student List is running on a manifesto including purging officials who broke rules cracking down on protesters, stopping party loyalists heading public enterprises, and freeing the public broadcaster of political control. Vucic and the SNS deny corruption and seeking to influence the media.

Most commentators suggest that a high final turnout, 65% or above, would favour the students. Voting ends at 20:00, with first indications of results expected two hours later.

Long queues formed outside polling stations in larger cities and smaller towns alike, and at polling stations abroad — including Slovenia's capital Ljubljana, Munich, Los Angeles and Chicago. In Paris, Serbian voters waited in line in heavy rain.

Tensions are high across Serbia. In Belgrade, police have closed streets around the Republic Electoral Commission (RIK). In a nearby street, cars at traffic lights lowered their windows to blast one of the students' anthems, 'I want three kisses' — a folk song favoured because the Student List is number three on the ballot paper. Young people on the pavement nearby started dancing.

Vucic and his SNS party are number one on the ballot paper. He has spent two terms as president and cannot seek a third term, so he is now leading his party with the aim of returning to the post of prime minister, which he left in 2017.

Vucic retains strong support among a significant section of Serbia's population. They view him as a strong leader who stands up for the country's interests. He can also point to significant economic growth over the past decade and numerous improvements in infrastructure. Vucic, who backs Serbia's candidacy for the European Union while refusing to impose sanctions on Russia over its war in Ukraine, has pledged higher pensions and public sector salaries, and investment in state healthcare.

"These are the hands that hold Serbia in their palms," says Vucic in his campaign video. "And with these hands, calmly and with dignity, we shall finish what we started." SNS posters around cities show two hands clasped together in solidarity: the hands of doctors and nurses, farmers, construction workers, teachers and parents.

Amid fears of electoral fraud by the SNS, the students have delegated at least two observers to each of Serbia's 8,210 voting stations.

Videos circulating on social media on Sunday morning show a cafe in the southern city of Nis, where ballot papers were allegedly filled out in advance in a practice known as 'chain voting'. Signs in the window read "private party". When they realise they are being filmed, the papers are quickly hidden. There have also been reports of attacks on election monitors and journalists at several polling stations.

"We are witnessing a unique experiment in European contemporary history," Zarko Korac, a former deputy prime minister and long-term opponent of nationalist parties in Serbia including the SNS, told reporters. Instead of running for office themselves, student-led assemblies at the country's university faculties have chosen 250 candidates to stand in the parliamentary election, with Ilija Srdanovic, a professor at Novi Sad University, heading the list. The list also includes doctors, actors, academics and sports personalities, though Srdanovic would not necessarily lead Serbia if they won.

Korac says these are people who do not know each other, whose political beliefs are unknown, and it is anybody's guess whether they could create a functioning government if they win. On the other hand, if Vucic declares victory this evening, probably late in the evening, Korac does not think the students will accept that. He suggests many former Vucic loyalists in high office could change sides at the last moment if the students win, while a close result with both sides claiming victory could result in weeks or months of political instability.

The electorate is 6.45 million in a population of 6.53 million, raising concerns about the reliability of the electoral register. Serbs from Kosovo, and dual Serbian citizens from neighbouring Bosnia, also have the right to vote.