Vučić Concedes Defeat in Serbia as Student-Led Movement Ends His 12-Year Rule

Serbia's President Aleksandar Vučić has conceded defeat to the student-led protest movement in the country's parliamentary election. Late on Sunday he said it was clear his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) had lost the election, opening the way to the end of his 12 years in power.

Speaking to supporters at his party headquarters in Belgrade, Vučić said that based on a stratified sample, 'we lost these elections.' Final results were not yet in, but preliminary figures showed the student-backed movement surging ahead.

Turnout was a record high. Pollsters and monitors CeSID and Ipsos put turnout at 67.6% by 7pm local time, the highest since the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1992. Long lines snaked out of polling stations across the country, with some voters waiting up to two hours.

Around 150,000 people had flocked to the students' final pre-election rally in Belgrade last week, fuelling early speculation that the movement had rallied enough support to end Vučić's 12 years in power.

Behind the election lie two years of student protests. In November 2024, a concrete canopy collapsed at the Novi Sad railway station, killing 16 people. When evidence suggested slipshod construction, fraud and corruption were to blame, student protests snowballed into a broad anti-government movement. Facing mounting pressure, Vučić resigned the presidency last month to gamble on snap elections.

The students seized the chance to turn the movement into political power, announcing a slate of 250 candidates for the 250-seat parliament — ranging from academics to athletes and farmers — and calling on voters to back their push to rebuild Serbia's economy and restore its democracy.

Their campaign slogan was 'Serbia or Mafia?'. Casting his ballot in Belgrade on Sunday, Dejan Bodiroga, a candidate on the students' list and EuroLeague Basketball president, told reporters: 'Today, above all, Serbia is fighting for freedom and for the return of a country that has been hijacked. Serbia is voting today to decide which direction it will take — towards the future or the past.'

Vučić, for his part, repeatedly sought to undermine the students by accusing them of being stooges of foreign powers, a charge they dismissed. He pledged to boost pensions and public sector salaries and presented himself as a leader able to walk the diplomatic tightrope between the west, Russia and China.

Undaunted, the students staged rallies, campaigned in the rural areas that had long been Vučić strongholds, and went door to door pitching themselves as anti-establishment candidates.

Before the vote, international and local election monitors expressed concerns about detentions and reports of surveillance and cyber-attacks against activists. On Sunday, independent monitoring groups warned of recorded cases of photographing ballots suggesting pressure on voters, attempted vote-buying and carousel voting. Raša Nedeljkov of the monitoring group CRTA said a large number of irregularities continued to be recorded, while violent incidents outside polling stations were also becoming increasingly frequent.

The result in Serbia, an EU-candidate country, is being watched around the world, and analysts say the student-led victory is likely to add momentum to the youth and student protests that have rocked cities across Europe.